TL;DR: Windows 11's File Explorer remains slower than Windows 10 despite a fix that preloads the app at startup, doubling its RAM usage without significantly improving speed. The slower performance ...

Windows XXX: First introduced as "Windows Explorer" back in the Windows 95 era, File Explorer has been an integral part of the PC operating system for decades. File Explorer now serves double duty as ...

Preloading will help File Explorer launch more quickly on less powerful hardware. Preloading will help File Explorer launch more quickly on less powerful hardware. is a senior editor and author of ...

Microsoft is testing a new optional feature that preloads File Explorer in the background to improve launch times and performance on Windows 11 systems. According to Microsoft, the app will load ...

Following the October 2025 Patch Tuesday updates, many Windows users began reporting a frustrating issue: the File Explorer preview pane suddenly stopped working for many common file types. In a move ...

Microsoft has updated File Explorer to automatically block file previews for items downloaded from the internet, aiming to prevent credential theft via malicious documents. The feature, active after ...

Instead of releasing new features with major annual updates, Microsoft is rolling out new changes with feature drops. In fact, as we learned in our Windows 12 explainer, the Redmond giant is moving to ...

You can access four new Copilot skills directly from File Explorer. You can summarize, ask questions, and compare up to five files. The process supports Microsoft 365 files, PDFs, and web files.

Everyone has to deal with File Explorer. It is, after all, the Windows feature you use to get around the file system, organize data, copy and move folders, access external drives, and more. Over the ...

The navigation pane can be disabled unintentionally due to a miss-click or system update. File Explorer also includes settings that control how the pane displays folders, drives, and libraries.