Microsoft’s latest preview update, known as Windows 11 Build 22526, apparently comes with a new change that should improve the performance of File Explorer. The last major Windows Update fixed pretty huge issues for PCs with AMD Ryzen CPUs and Microsoft is now planning to optimize File Explorer’s search tool.
File Explorer search uses Windows Search to build an index and provide fast file searches to users. The same index is also used by other features of the operating system including the Cortana assistant.
By default, Windows indexes important locations, such as the “Start Menu” folder and “Users” folders, so it can return your apps or downloads in search results. This also covers your personal files, which includes Desktop, Pictures, Music, and Videos folders where your images are stored by default.
Sometimes, it can be particularly hard to find certain files using the search box in File Explorer even though it uses the same search engine which powers searches of your Start menu or Windows Search.
Starting with Windows 11 Build 22526, File Explorer will be able to index more files locations. In other words, users will be able to quickly find important files and the overall experience is going to be faster.
At the moment, we don’t have a list of new locations being indexed by Explorer. If you want to remove new locations from the index, just head to Windows Search settings and exclude locations containing large or complex files.
As part of its efforts to improve overall system performance, Microsoft also did some work to reduce Explorer.exe crashes when you use the search box. The update has fixed an issue where some users encounter problems when using Explorer and the performance of their PC also slowed down.
Other fixes in recent preview builds:
- Microsoft is fixing issues with the context menu in File Explorer.
- The right-click menu should open slightly faster now, but the overall experience is still buggy.
- Microsoft has added a new group policy that will be enabled to turn off Office.com integration. Once disabled, Explorer will stop including files from Office.com and Explorer will also stop making connection requests to Office. This change also affects Windows 11 Start menu from displaying online Office documents.
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