Windows 11 File Explorer EXTREMELY Slow Unless Restarted Every Few Minutes

Anonymous
2023-01-30T20:51:39+00:00

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.

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Performance and system failures

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  1. Anonymous
    2023-12-20T23:27:09+00:00

    I also noticed this issue when the update came out and i use to use this feature quite a bit as well. Now I did find a look hole, if you go to upload you're images to a design space or app... you are able to drag and drop from there. However you can only do one at a time. I now have to constantly restart my laptop every hour or so and constantly restart windows file explorer and its like it takes forever for everything to synce if I move something from my screenshots to my google drive file or anything else. Im highly disappointed that as long as this issue has been out.. i still cant seem to get any type of resolution with it.

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-11-21T00:45:32+00:00

    Same issue Nov 2023, tried all the steps in this massive thread and nothing. Microsoft are a joke

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-11-20T23:24:18+00:00

    I had this same issue. I tried all of the suggestions in this thread, including changing quick access and paging file settings. None of them worked for me.

    What ended up working was a rebuild of the search index. I noticed a message saying that the indexing service wasn't running. I tried to start the service manually, but it wouldn't run.

    I found this suggestion and my problem is fixed.

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-11-17T00:42:54+00:00

    Having the same problem here, in 23H2. Will this problem ever be fixed for Windows 11? Also having context menu problems with W11. Neither of these two problems are present on my work W10 machine.

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  5. Anonymous
    2023-10-30T16:24:26+00:00

    Good evening.

    I have made this change a few weeks ago when I read your first posting about it and it definitely improved the performance of the laptop.

    Very big difference for sure. Just disappointed that Windows 11 has become like this. Very disappointing for sure.

    Hope they get it sorted soon.

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