Posts Tagged ‘restart explorer.exe windows 11’

Fast Methods to Restart File Explorer in Windows 11

May 27th, 2022 by Admin

There are situations where File Explorer becomes unresponsive and you need to restart it. To apply a registry tweak, you may also need to restart File Explorer. In this tutorial we’ll show you some fast methods to restart File Explorer in Windows 11.

Method 1: Restart File Explorer Using Task Manager

Use the Ctrl + Shift + Esc keyboard shortcut to open up Task Manager. Choose the Users tab, then click the arrow next to your current account to expand a list of all running programs.

Select “Windows Explorer” and click the Restart button to restart File Explorer.

Method 2: Restart File Explorer Using Windows PowerShell

Open Windows PowerShell as administrator, and then run one of the following commands:

  • kill -n explorer
  • stop-process -name explorer -force

It will restart the File Explorer immediately.

Method 3: Restart File Explorer Using Command Prompt

Open Command Prompt as administrator, and execute these commands one by one:
taskkill /f /im explorer.exe
start explorer.exe

This will forcibly terminate the explorer.exe process and then start it.

Method 4: Restart File Explorer Using Keyboard Shortcut

Press and hold the Alt + Tab keys at the same time. When the Task Switcher appears, release the Tab key and then press F4. After a while, Windows Explorer will restart automatically.

Method 5: Create a Desktop Shortcut to Restart File Explorer

Right-click the empty space on your desktop and choose New -> Shortcut from the context menu that pops up.

Copy the following command and paste it in the location box, and click Next.
cmd.exe /c "taskkill.exe /f /im explorer.exe && start explorer.exe"

Type a meaningful name for this shortcut. Click Finish.

Whenever you need to restart Windows Explorer, simply double-click the desktop shortcut you just created.

That’s it!