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on a new computer i have again troubles with the explorer, this time i think it is due to a wrong/old account which is no longer active: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
    2023-10-11T22:14:08+00:00

    One guy replied and said the 23H2 update fixed it, but I will reserve judgement, because presently I have to restart File Explorer at least twice a day. I think it happens more for me because I often work with 2 external USB3 HDD's that can go into a deep sleep after 3 hours of non-access, which can take up to 30 seconds to wake up, as opposed to the usual 5-7 seconds from normal sleep. My guess is that Explorer has an internal timeout that is shorter than 30 seconds, because each time a drive goes into deep sleep, after a wakeup, I can check Explorer in task manager, and I will see that its buffer size increases by 500MB to 1GB from what it was just before waking a drive up. Once I can narrow this down to reliably replicate, I will pass it on to MS, although it appears the 23H2 may have already fixed it, so I will first wait to test that.

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-10-11T19:22:56+00:00

    I did not see much update with that.

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-10-11T19:00:56+00:00

    A PC magazine said Microsoft was going to charge for Windows 12. Maybe the business strategy is to make Windows 11 so awful then tell us everything is fixed in Windows 12.

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-10-11T17:28:51+00:00

    YES!!! This works! I have been dealing with a painfully slow file explorer for months, dreading the process of downgrading to Windows 10 or whatever else was necessary to resolve. I installed the 23H2 update yesterday and have seen lightning fast file explorer response for the past 24 hours.

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