By Tom Warren
Publication Date: 2025-11-24 11:20:00
Microsoft is making some changes to the File Explorer in Windows 11 that will make it less cluttered and launch faster. The latest Dev preview builds of Windows 11 include File Explorer preloading “to help improve File Explorer launch performance,” and changes to the context menu to reduce the amount of space less commonly used actions take up.
The preloading of File Explorer should hopefully mean Microsoft’s file and folder management tool launches faster on systems where performance is constrained. On modern PCs it’s nearly instant, but I’ve certainly witnessed it load slower on less powerful devices like Windows handhelds and tablets.
You’ll be able to disable the File Explorer preloading so it’s not always running in the background. After all, most PCs will not need to preload File Explorer. It’s similar to the work Microsoft did with its Office apps earlier this year, to improve the startup speed of Word with a scheduled task that runs silently when you boot your…
