Il file manager Windows has changed a lot over the years. Quickly recalled by pressing the key combination Windows+Eit is a tool that allows you to “navigate” between files and folders present on the system in use. It’s good to know the secrets of File Explorer to interact with the contents of any drive.
Between behaviors more annoying than File Explorer, however, there is one that is really annoying. Have you ever tried to open a large folder, with many files and subfolders inside it? Windows struggles and takes time to display all the contents. What causes these unconvincing performances?
What to do if Windows is slow to open large folders
You have moved on to aSSD drive abandoning that old and very slow magnetomechanical hard disk that you have used for years? Yet, when a folder contains a lot of data, especially if of different types, Windows always seems to have serious difficulty managing its contents.
This happens because, by default, the Microsoft operating system tries to establish which objects are hosted in a folderexamining them one by one. This analysis activity obviously requires time and resources but is aimed at automatically modifying the display mode depending on the type of file in each directory. In another article we saw how to move from one folder to another, also focusing on difference between folder and directory.
The simple modification on the system registry to speed up the opening of folders
To avoid Windows results this to open the larger folders and avoid customizing the display mode of each directory, simply apply a simple trick that involves typing cmd in the operating system search box then enter the following command:
reg add HKCU\SOFTWARE\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\AllFolders\Shell /v FolderType /d "NotSpecified" /f
At this point, to make the change effective, you can force a restart of the Windows graphical interface (alternatively you can restart the system or log out of the account):
taskkill /im explorer.exe /f
explorer.exe
It should be highlighted that the intervention is valid only and exclusively for theuser accounts currently in use (note the use of the branch HKCU that is to say HKEY_CURRENT_USER). In fact, when opening the command prompt, the use of administrator rights is not even required.
We have verified that the change leads to excellent results in Windows 11, Windows 10 and Windows 7. It is a shame that such an effective change has not yet been added by Microsoft in the custom settings of options of each folder.
Opening image credit: iStock.com – NicoElNino