Windows 11 file explorer is slow, lagging, hangs!

Anonymous
2022-11-06T07:07:24+00:00

Hi,

I have a very strong PC with Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe, Intel i7-9700K, 32GB Memory and ASUS ROG Strix Z390-H Gaming.
When my PC was on Windows 10 there was no problem with File Explorer but after upgrading to Windows 11 I am facing a problem with file explorer slow, lagging, hangs even when just renaming a file.
Only full PC restart is solving the problem for a short time.

How to solve this problem on windows 11 please?

Thanks,
AG

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Files, folders, and storage

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Anonymous
2022-11-28T14:17:19+00:00

I also experienced Lags with the Explorer:

  1. On Windows 10, i could solve them by removing external file-drives (SMB) from Quick-Access. I created a folder with Links to the drives instead and explorer was fast again. Probably the explorer tried to connect to these drives and for some reason failed, even though the connection was up and working.
  2. On Windows 11 on a new computer i have again troubles with the explorer, this time i think it is due to a wrong/old account which is no longer active:
    Image The problems came with the "Home"-Button, which was added at some point. Also the "Please sign in" only shows when selecting the "Home"-Button.

This might also be related to an account i am unable to remove:
Image
Clicking on 'Manage' opens the login-page for the first account and i can not find the old account in the first account to remove it.

Can your problem also be associated with one of the issues above?

Does anyone know how to solve the second issue by e.g. disabling the "Home" button, changing the account in the explorer or removing a no longer existing old account?

Updated Info / what i use:

  1. Don't use mapped Drives oder External Folders in Quick-Access. Keep all pinned-directories pointing to local files / folders. Instead, save them as files / links:

Image

  1. Disable OneDrive.exe in StartUp-Apps. If this still does not help, completely disable or remove onedrive: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/turn-off-disable-or-uninstall-onedrive-f32a17ce-3336-40fe-9c38-6efb09f944b0 
  2. 'Home' as startup-folder seems to also be slow, change it: https://www.digitalcitizen.life/how-set-start-location-file-explorer-windows-10/
    Image

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  1. Anonymous
    2024-03-12T19:36:05+00:00

    I have 2 Windows 11 systems (Desktop and Laptop). The Desktop has 3 external drives because of the limited SSD space. On Windows 10 the access to SSD and external USB drives was faster than the cloud. With Windows 11 the speed switched, local access (both USB drive and SSD) is slower than the cloud. This appears like a design choice by Microsoft.

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-03-12T10:41:40+00:00

    I strongly believe Windows Explorer is built in C# for Win11, so, a good alternative to Windows Explorer from Win11 would be Explorer++

    Enjoy it!

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-03-12T08:34:37+00:00

    OMG. It's so annoying to wait a few minutes each time for Explorer to load. Windows 10 never had such problems, why did they release Windows 11 without fixing bugs, so that people spend hours trying to fix something that should work out of the box?

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-02-23T16:51:58+00:00

    Wish that was my problem. I uninstalled OneDrive as soon as it was made available. My issue is due to external drives (via USB 3.0 ports). Using them causes background Windows Explorer processes to increase memory use to increase as much as 1.2MB per second, until all apps are forces to use the Page File as if system memory. Turning Indexing of the drives off really helps, but just delays the inevitable, where it will eventually use up to 95% of memory until the system is so slow I think I'm running my old 1.77KHz TRS-80 Model I. Restarting the process in Task Manager is a temporary fix. It gets worse after a drive goes to sleep. It seems Windows is trying to do something on the drive but is incapable of detecting that the drive is sleeping, so it tries even harder and ends up eating memory faster. But even if we look for an alternative to File Explorer. the background Windows Explorer app must still run, being essential for Windows to even function, so the core problem would persist. Does anyone remember the days when Microsoft would address and fix such issues within days or even hours? Not to knock outsourcing most support to China and India, but overall support has gone down the toilet. Using other operating systems, the story is little different. By rights, this explorer slow-down issue should be a showstopper, but is being treated as if it is just another day at their corporate office.

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