How to Restart File Explorer Quickly on Windows 11

On Windows 7, File Explorer was known as Windows Explorer. Starting with Windows 8, Microsoft renamed Windows Explorer to File Explorer, and it still goes by that name in Windows 11. (Restart File Explorer).

When it was known as Windows Explorer in earlier versions of Windows, I couldn’t understand why it was renamed to File Explorer. Will Microsoft apologize for the erroneous naming of Windows Explorer, or will the current CEO of Microsoft say something about File Explorer? I’m still baffled as to what’s going on with Microsoft. What’s the reasoning behind this? When they release a new version of Windows, they simply change the names of the same items. Isn’t it true that training employees costs the company money? You’re the boss, and you have the authority to make any decision you want?

Let’s make this an open confession session for Microsoft, and then we’ll get back to our topic of quickly restarting File Explorer on Windows 11/10. If you need to restart File Explorer in Windows 11/10/8/7 for some reason, you can create a batch file on your computer or laptop. It’s also possible to kill File Explorer from the task manager and then re-start it from the task manager.

Related: How to Disable or Enable Mouse Acceleration on Windows 11

To restart File Explorer in Windows 11/10, you need to do the following:-

By pressing the Ctrl + Shift + Esc hotkey, you can open Task Manager and go to the Processes tab. Locate the Windows Explorer process, right-click it, and choose Restart from the menu.

If your Windows Explorer/File Explorer frequently freezes or stops working, you should make a batch file to restart it. Double-clicking on a batch file after it has been created will easily restart File Explorer.

To do so, open a Notepad file on your computer and copy and paste the following lines into it:-

@echo off
taskkill /f /im explorer.exe
start explorer.exe

Now, go to the File menu and select Save As.

Choose where you want this batch file to be saved on your computer. After that, do the following:-

Write RestartExplorer.bat in front of File name box.
Select All Files option from the Save as type drop-down menu.

When you’re finished, click the Save button. That is all there is to it. Simply double-click on the batch file you created to restart your File Explorer. To restart the File Explorer on your PC, no need to open the task manager and look for Windows Explorer.