Windows 11 file explorer is slow, lagging, hangs!

Anonymous

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

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Anonymous

I also experienced Lags with the Explorer:

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.
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on a new computer i have again troubles with the explorer, this time i think it is due to a wrong/old account which is no longer active:
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:

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:

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:

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
'Home' as startup-folder seems to also be slow, change it: https://www.digitalcitizen.life/how-set-start-location-file-explorer-windows-10/

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276 additional answers

Anonymous

2024-02-19T06:57:23+00:00

I don't have such an option:
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Anonymous

2024-02-19T04:18:19+00:00

Yes this is exactly what happens to me! I guess windows10 does not do a search on the NAS when file explorer launches whereas windows 11 does. I think this is more of a bug.
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Les Ferch 10,361 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator

2024-02-19T04:06:01+00:00
Also check that your USB drives are not being powered off automatically. My laptop was initially set to power off drives after 1 minute of drive inactivity. It took 5-6 seconds to wake them up. That was on Windows 10, but I'm pretty sure it can happen on Windows 11 as well. Here's the setting in the Advanced Power Options:

If that setting is not there, you can enable it via this registry setting:
```
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\PowerSettings\0012ee47-9041-4b5d-9b77-535fba8b1442\6738e2c4-e8a5-4a42-b16a-e040e769756e] 

"Attributes"=dword:00000002
```
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Anonymous

2024-02-19T03:57:28+00:00

Ok, this was pretty interesting.

One of my biggest problems has been opening and sorting folders containing photos and media files. Opening a folder to my default sort order (date created for example) or resorting could take 10 minutes -> never complete. This is for folders with a couple of hundred images and forget about 2000 or more!

I tried this change and the now loading and sorting is blazingly fast... Unfortunately, I can no longer see the thumbnails which is what I really need in order to find and deal with the pictures in the files. It does seem to indicate that this problem is related to the thumbnails. Does anyone have an idea how I can address this?

Thank you!
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