Serious Discussion Switching File Explorer to and from full screen (F11) drastically improves performance

Jonny Quest

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I've never really kept track or have noticed it before, as some of the bigger folders and file numbers are in Windows System32 and SysWow64, which I hardly access. But, after switching to and from full screen, those folders don't "populate", they're there! Interesting.
 

Jonny Quest

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Pls do update how that goes.
On that other laptop, even though I'm running the Kaspersky beta, I really can't see or tell too much of a difference. It's still quick either way.
 

vtqhtr413

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Aug 17, 2017
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I read an article on this topic yesterday morning and it explained that it was most noticeable when opening files with a very large amount of data inside, I couldn't find that article but did find one that reposted the same one as Brambedkar59. In this article they presume it triggers an indexing setting.
It’s completely unknown what causes this speed-up of the otherwise sluggish File Explorer — and whether there are side effects of any kind. We suspect that Windows 11 switches off some indexing options as soon as you switch to full screen mode. This then leads to the File Explorer displaying the content at lightning speed.

I remember back when you reinstalled the OS (pre Win 7?) or added a large amount of data to a file, the indexer would take off and bog the machine down so I'm sure MS put some limits on indexing to cure that, which means if you knew how to go about it, that setting could be changed.
 

brambedkar59

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On that other laptop, even though I'm running the Kaspersky beta, I really can't see or tell too much of a difference. It's still quick either way.
I haven't tested it on any other machine because this is the only system I have with Win11 installed. Difference is not night and day but it definitely is slower compared to without using the fullscreen trick. With the trick Files/folders load before it has time to show "working on it" under size column.

I read an article on this topic yesterday morning and it explained that it was most noticeable when opening files with a very large amount of data inside, I couldn't find that article but did find one that reposted the same one as Brambedkar59. In this article they presume it triggers an indexing setting.


I remember back when you reinstalled the OS (pre Win 7?) or added a large amount of data to a file, the indexer would take off and bog the machine down so I'm sure MS put some limits on indexing to cure that, which means if you knew how to go about it, that setting could be changed.
Idk what's causing this but it shouldn't be an indexer issue because I have disabled indexer (by disabling Windows search service) on my system.
 

vtqhtr413

Level 27
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Aug 17, 2017
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Well, you are exceptional folks, just speaking out of my backside here but I doubt most people disable indexing, if that is so, it still leaves the issue a mystery, not to me as I do believe MS has implemented limits to the indexing process and when you expand the explorer window to full screen it gives whatever you are working on in that window full priority, very sensible and simple cure. Turn on your indexer's boys, live large :love:
 

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