For once, a Windows bug hides a pleasant surprise. This curious defect indeed makes it possible to give a little boost to the File Explorer, always a little soft, with a simple manipulation.
Bugs in Windows? It would take days to list them. And things don’t get any better over time. Each system update, especially since the arrival of Windows 11, corrects many problems while bringing new ones. Faulty drivers here, connection or display faults there… it’s very simple, as soon as Windows Update announces the availability of updates, the level of anxiety among users goes up a notch. Sometimes to the point of wondering if there is still someone who leads the development teams (read our article). However, Microsoft’s lack of oversight and diligence regarding its system may reveal pleasant surprises. This is what discovered Vivy, a user who indicates on X (formerly Twitter) to be passionate about reverse engineering and programming. She has indeed pinpointed a useful Windows bug. A small flaw that gives a little boost to File Explorer, a daily must for all system users.
Did you know you can speedup explorer by use of bugs?
Turns out switching in and out of full screen mode (F11) noticeably improves load times!
Wish this was the performance we get out of box.
(Yes navbar breaks.. tho navbar shouldn’t cause such a huge snappiness regression..) pic.twitter.com/GObybf1C8q
— Vivy (@VivyVCCS) September 3, 2023
We know it (and we also feel it), the Explorer is not a reactivity monster. And this, despite the few practical and aesthetic changes recently made by Microsoft. It is therefore a surprising manipulation, and of course not documented, which makes it possible to speed it up a little to navigate in the folders and to make the display more dynamic. And the method is extremely simple. Once the Explorer window is displayed on the screen, all you have to do is switch it to full screen by pressing the key F11 on the keyboard, then immediately switch it back to window mode by pressing the key again F11. As we have seen ourselves, the Explorer is really more responsive. The files present in the folders are displayed in the blink of an eye, even those which are particularly well filled, where, ordinarily, a small latency time is always present, even on powerful PCs.
All that remains is to hope that the Windows developers do nothing to correct this providential bug that the young Vivy cannot explain. There are many other more pressing and problematic bugs to fix.