Windows 11 file explorer is slow, lagging, hangs!

From my testing, your best bet for improving Windows 11 File Explorer speed, is to enable the option to make all folders Generic (which causes File Explorer to disable its automatic folder type discovery)

Disabling 'Automatic folder type discovery' did the trick for me : now File Explorer seems to not toggle to another view automatically when encountering audio and videos files, which makes the content to load instantaneously.

Thank you !

p.s.: I disabled 'Automatic folder type discovery' by using the script 'Specify_all_folders_use_General_Items_template_for_current_user.bat' provided here Change Template of Drive, Folder, or Library in Windows 11 File Explorer

[update] the .bat was in fact not conclusive; I have finally disabled 'Automatic folder type discovery' completely with WinSetView; more info here

I tried many of the suggestions throughout this thread. Thanks much to all of you for sharing, but none of them seemed to make a significant difference for me. My performance issue with Explorer has mainly been that when opening folders, especially folders with many files or a lot of subfolders, it takes a few seconds to load before it will respond. If I'm trying to drill down into a folder that is several layers deep, it has been frustrating to double click, wait 3 or 4 seconds, double click, wait 6 or 7 seconds, double click, wait 4 or 5 seconds, etc. In trying some of the suggestions above, I noticed the following setting and I believe this seems to have resolved my issue. I can now click through folders much more instantaneously similar to what I had experienced in Windows 10. Sharing in case this is useful to others.

For me this works, please feel free to change this list, so that others can follow:

My Explorer looks like this:

1. I dont use any mapped Network-Drives / Shares and removed them all. Instead I use Shortcuts like '01_the network drive'. Somehow it seems, that Windows Explorer on startup tries to connect to all mapped Network-Drives, if some are not available (Network problems, VPN not connected) it hangs.
2. I use pinned directories, like 'docs'. I try to keep all pinned directories pointing to local, meaning 'C:'. To go to my Network-Drives I click '01_shortcuts' which will lead me to the shortcuts stored locally on C:\somewhere
3. I would love to disable 'Home' and try to not use it at all:
4. I disabled OneDrive.exe in the Startup apps:
   Notice the upper right corner in my Explorer: there is no OneDrive-Sign. I can still use OneDrive, but I like to start it manually whenever i really need it. I try to work with my Network-Shares and other Cloud-Providers and am only using OneDrive where needed

This seems to work pretty fine. Probably 4 times in a month the pinned-section (see picture above: Desktop, Downloads, Documents etc.) loads slowly probably 5 Seconds. And only 'This PC -> Local Disk (C:)' is showing. Therefore i also try to move my pinned directories to C:, so that i will find them easily if they are not loaded. Also 'Downloads' and 'Documents' sometimes has problems, i probably should replace even these pinned Directories with some links ;-).

It really is crazy how Microsoft is developing stuff like Cortana but the Windows Explorer in Windows 95 (20 years ago!) seems to have been better and faster than today! I would love Microsoft to make a minimalistic Explorer showing only C:\ but working reliably. If I need 'Music, Pictures, OneDrive' and whatever, I can configure them myself.

Is there a number you can call with Microsoft about this issue? Or are message boards the only options? Thanks for your help again.

Not sure about calling, but you should provide feedback about this to Microsoft via the Feedback Hub (⊞-F in Windows).

It would be interesting to see if installing StartAllBack makes any difference for the issues you're seeing. That tool is only advertised as changing visual elements, but I know that if you use its option to select the Windows 10 style ribbon in File Explorer, it also eliminates the folder type setting bugs in Windows 11, presumably because it makes Windows use an older File Explorer code base. Worth a try.

Almost forgot... Before trying StartAllBack, see if things work correctly just by using the older File Explorer that's available in Windows 11 by going through the Control Panel. That is, open the Control Panel and enter "This PC" or "C:" in the address bar. Try your file moves from that window.