- Microsoft has made a hidden change in the latest Windows 11 update
- File Explorer now opens a lot faster than it did previously
- However, it’s gone from super-sluggish to now just plain slow, and Microsoft still needs to pep up its performance
Windows 11 has received a hidden perk with its latest update that arrived at the end of April, as Microsoft has made File Explorer a lot faster to pop up.
This benefit is granted by patch KB5055627, the preview update for Windows 11 24H2 in April which is an optional download (meaning it’s still in testing, so exercise caution around installing it, as with anything that isn’t quite finished).
File Explorer is the app which powers the folders (and files within) that you work with on your desktop, and you’ve likely noticed that when you first open a folder, it can be very slow to appear in Windows 11.
There are reasons for that sluggish initial loading (which I’ll come back to), but as Windows Latest reports, File Explorer now fires up a lot faster with the latest update for Windows 11.
The tech site provides a couple of short video clips that showcase the difference. Before the optional update, Windows 11 opens File Explorer very sluggishly indeed – elements are visibly missing for multiple seconds – and post-patch the window is fully populated with the interface (and ‘Home’ tab) a lot more swiftly.
While the release notes for KB5055627 don’t mention any move to improve the performance of File Explorer, Windows Latest reached out to Microsoft, and the company confirmed that this update does indeed contain work to this end.
Analysis: Faster, but still not snappy enough
Obviously, this is a positive development, but even in its new considerably faster form, File Explorer is still relatively slow to appear for the first couple of times it’s summoned in a session on your PC. There’s still a noticeable pause as the interface loads in, which is far from ideal. In short, it remains too slow in my books, even after these improvements.
Starting File Explorer on my Windows 10 PC sees it pop onto the desktop immediately, with no pause for breath (hardly). Go onto my Windows 11 laptop (without the mentioned latest update) and open File Explorer, and I’m sat drumming my fingers as I’m told the OS is ‘working on it’ in terms of bringing up the contents of the window. (That message is literally presented in the window in lieu of a spinning wheel of doom or timer thingy).
So why are things so different in Windows 11? Well, as Windows Latest explains, it’s because Microsoft changed fundamental parts of File Explorer in Windows 11, and that tinkering with the guts of the app means slightly longer loading times – compounded by work on bringing in syncing with the cloud. The upshot of which is that for some users, File Explorer can be annoyingly sluggish (and this can be particularly frustrating for those who actively don’t want any cloud integration).
This optional update is definitely a step in the right direction, mind, but Microsoft still has a fair bit of work to do here. That said, I should also note that in general, I find Windows 11 feels snappier and more responsive than Windows 10 in many ways, but definitely not with File Explorer (which has been problematic from the get-go).
I wouldn’t advise downloading this (or any) optional patch – which also packs the full fix for blue screen crashes some folks have been hit by – for reasons I’ve already gone over earlier this week. But rest assured this faster File Explorer should be arriving with the next full patch for Windows 11, the cumulative update which will be released the week after next, on May 13.
