So, I've recently done a fresh install of Windows 11 and everything has been working perfectly. However, today, upon starting my machine, WIndows Explorer (the file explorer) is not behaving. Whenever I try to open a file location, it takes minutes before displaying anything, even if it displays at all before I have to end the task in Task Manager.

I've tried restarting the machine, restarting Explorer.exe and so on, but cannot find what's causing the issue. It was totally fine last night and I've checked updates history, and no updates or anything were installed recently either. Between turning off last night and today, something has happened that I can't work out, due to there being no updates and tried to restart the machine with the issue persisting.

Interesting, when I try to run CCleaner (including as Admin) to try and clean things, it seems to hang on trying to clean the Internet Explorer History, but I don't know if that helps with anything?! It does get past it eventually, but after hanging at 28% on this bit for a few minutes.

I did recently go into Services to try and optimise a few things, and checked this site. However, everything I checked seemed to mostly already been on Manual or Disabled following previous optimisations days ago. Would any of the options to disable lower down on this site cause something like this: https://nerdschalk.com/what-windows-11-services-to-disable-safely-and-how/

Any ideas what could be causing this?!?!

 

Last edited: Jun 8, 2023

I had something similar happen recently when I disabled indexing and some other services while trying to "optimize" a fresh install win11 computer with custom iso. I never found the cause so I eventually did another re-install to fix.

If you've made any system changes, try undoing them. Worst case scenario, your hard drive or ram might be failing or incorrectly seated.

 

Maybe your SSD/HDD is dying. Check S.M.A.R.T stats with tool like CrystalDiskInfo (free) and try to check your drives for errors

 

I fear it's something similar for me, and having just finishing reinstalling DAWs and VSTs that took a few days, I don't really wanna start the cycle and fresh install again!

The above link has a few services I most recently looked at, but from memory I don't remember needing to change any (but may have changed one or two). Most were already Manual or Disbaled when I was checking them, but one or two were on auto that I changed to manual.

 

Did you really restart your machine or did Windows resume from some sleep state?

If it's something with your drives, then Windows usually notices and records the problem. Type 'event viewer' into your start menu, go to 'Custom Views->Administrative Events' and check there.

If it's too spammy, sort by Level and read Critical first, then Errors, then Warnings.

If your drives are failing due to hardware issues, it'll probably say something like 'retried I/O for 547217171 times'.

 

Definitely not. All brand new NVMe drives and already checked drives and no issues, especially as this happens across all of my drivers, being NVMEs, SSDs, HDDs, externals and so on, so 2ould have to have happened to all of them (about 7 drives in all) if it was drive related.

 

It gets shut down and fully powered down every night with power supply turned off, so definitely not waking up from any sleep.

As above, also nothing to do with drives or would have happened to all drives of different types at exactly the same time.

 

You may have changed one or two? Mate some (not all) that are on auto mean the system will start them as or when it needs to.. Manual means it can be started but only by either you or another process linked to it.. Unless you know exactly what you're doing you can screw up everything.

Also something interesting about it hanging on cleaning with CCleaner. Once you have decided what you want it to clean.. let it finish, even if it appears to hang. If it doesn't finish (ie it crashes) there could be some bad sectors on the drive. I use HDD Regenerator to fix those although on huge drives it can take a couple of days to deep search/ locate and then repair.

 

Last edited: Jun 8, 2023

You can try this: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...-windows-365e0031-36b1-6031-f804-8fd86e0ef4ca
This will check the system files and repair them if needed.

 

I know that, but there are some services that can (and even should be) stopped and changes to Manual or Disable to optimise system and/or maintain privacy.

The link above is what I most recently went through, and none of them, from what I can see, should affect Explorer, though others better educated may advise differently.

 

Yes absolutely there are some that can, and indeed should be stopped.

in the link up there ^^^ they suggested turning off 'telemetry.'. witch I fully agree with

I don't suppose you have a system restore on there you can try?

 

I also don't think any of these mentioned 32 services in the article will cause the issue with your Explorer? But IMO it would be better to leave 3, 5 and 18 alone.The rest seems OK to disable depending on how and what you use on your pc.

 

Nope. Foolishly I read through them, they all said safe to turn off, and so thought one wouldn't be necessary

 

Tried this and made no difference.

 

I just did an Advanced Startup and, luckily, I'd uninstalled something just before tweaking the Services, so there was an automated restore. Went back to it, and all working properly now, so was definitely something in the Services that the link above suggests to turn off that caused it!

 

Maybe Sfc /scannow

 

I know you're knowledgeable enough so this might be a stupid q, but did you check Black Viper's web site before tweaking the services? It's always a good idea to precisely know beforehand what you're disabling or putting on manual start because MS descriptions are like "wtf have I just read?!"

Also cmd then chkdsk /f (disk designation) is a really good friend when something is wrong with the Windows file system. Good practice is to do it on all disks from time to time. Cheers!

 

The aforementioned "sfc" and "chkdsk" commands should do the trick, but there's also DISM, another MS's Windows system integrity checker.

Code:

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth

As for services... I mostly tend to leave them as is, just shut down a couple of ones I know that are save to kill. Then I just run O&O Shutup (free, portable with no install) to disable applications and services that I don't need and certainly don't want. I use normally the "recommended" profile just to be safe. Further telemetry blocking is done outside the system.

 

Restore is nice, but do FULL backups regularly, too.