Windows 11 File Explorer EXTREMELY Slow Unless Restarted Every Few Minutes

Anonymous

Hello all. I have been researching this issue for a while, but none of the suggested fixes I have found and tried have had any effect. I've tried numerous setting change suggestions with indexing, File Explorer options, etc, but nothing has improved this issue even slightly. Even a complete clean install when I recently upgraded my SSD had no effect.

The issue is that my file explorer starts out normally fast when first opened. For example, opening my downloads folder(located on my desktop) and fully populating all thumbnails, etc, takes about a second the first time you do it. However, within a few seconds that speed is replaced by EXTREMELY slow performance. For example, if I open a subfolder under downloads, then attempt to return to the downloads folder, it will take 45 seconds to 2 minutes to perform the same action is just did in less than 2. During this time, CPU load never exceeds 10%, Disk usage never exceeds 1%, and Memory usage never exceeds 25%. The second or third navigation request within Windows Explorer will start the issue every time. It will stay this way until you restart Windows Explorer from the Task Manager, upon which it will be normal speed again for a few seconds, then immediately revert to the exceptionally slow behavior. It is so slow that the fastest way to navigate is to constantly restart the process every time you need to change folders. All other programs and features operate perfectly normally.

This is not a hardware speed issue, as Windows 10 ran perfectly fine on this machine. It's an i7 8700K with 32 Gigs of RAM on a Gigabyte Z390 with a Samsung Evo 980 M.2 SSD. This should be lightning quick at such tasks.

I could really use a hand here, this is a completely unacceptable situation.

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Anonymous

2023-01-31T21:41:06+00:00

I was wondering if the recommended steps worked for you? Let me know if you still need help with that and I'll be happy to follow through. Thanks!
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Anonymous

2023-01-30T22:06:18+00:00

Hi Alan. I'm Greg, here to help you with this.

If this would persist after a true Clean Install where all partitions are deleted off the drive, the latest bootable media is used, and was close to this gold standard Clean Install: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wiki... then it must be caused by something that is being added or modified.

It's important the latest version was used and all Updates (including Optional under Advanced) are installed because a known issue with terribly slow Explorer was fixed in April 2022 via an Update and is included in Version 22H2.

Next suspect is modifications, so try removing those to see if it is fixed. Next suspect is something else installed like an app, older program or Windows Update.

Did you happen to notice when this behavior began? Was it right after the reinstall or did it start later. Do you happen to have a System Restore point during that period which you can try to get back before the problem started, then monitor everything subsequently installed to try to isolate the problem?

If none of those apply or help then let's try the fixes for known issues of Windows 11 Explorer becoming slow:

https://helpdeskgeek.com/windows-11/how-to-fix-...

https://www.systweak.com/blogs/fix-file-explore...

https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows11/comments/q26...

https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows11/comments/v0r...

https://techviral.net/fix-slow-file-explorer-wi...

https://www.kapilarya.com/fix-windows-11-file-e...

https://nimbletech.org/slow-file-explorer-windo...

If none of those help Go over Windows 11 with this Performance Checklist to try to find and fix problems:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/for...

Feel free to ask back any questions. Based on the detailed results you post back, I will have other suggestions if necessary.

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