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 ...

Attempting to mask the sluggish performance of its modern interface, Microsoft is testing a controversial new feature in Windows 11 that keeps File Explorer permanently resident in memory. Released to ...

Microsoft has announced that it's testing out a new change on Windows 11 that will automatically preload File Explorer in the background in an attempt to speed up the app when users launch it.

To protect users’ computers from a vulnerability that could expose NTLM hashes when previewing potentially unsafe files, File Explorer will now disable the preview for files downloaded from the ...

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 ...