Windows 11, released by Microsoft on October 5 , came with a number of known issues affecting the performance of some systems.
One of them affects AMD processors , which can experience a performance reduction of up to 15% on Microsoft's newest operating system. The situation worsened after the release of the first cumulative update for Windows 11 this Tuesday.
A patch is already available for testing, but users of the stable version will have to wait a bit longer for the Insiders to complete the testing.
Microsoft confirmed another performance issue with Windows 11 this week. The company released build 22478 to the Developer channel, with a fix that addresses a performance issue with File Explorer. The issue is seen when users navigate between folders in File Explorer.
The problem was known to users of the new operating system. In a previous post we had mentioned:
In Windows 11, File Explorer comes with two major design changes as part of the design review: the File Explorer menu has been replaced with a command line / header that uses the Mica design, while the context menu uses the Fluent Design.
But these "improvements" in design result in high memory usage by Explorer. The process referred to as "Explorer.exe" in the Task Manager seems to reach 70-99%, and makes non-stop use of the device processor.
As users have noted, File Explorer memory usage increases each time they open File Explorer.
Microsoft states in the release for build 22478:
Fixed an issue where the command line made unnecessary calculations while navigating folders, causing an unexpected reduction in performance. This is also believed to be the main cause of performance issues when using drag n drop to select files, as well as arrow keys to navigate specific folders.
Microsoft did not provide details on why the performance is falling, except that the new File Explorer command line performs unnecessary calculations. The command prompt has replaced the traditional File Explorer ribbon in Windows 10.
The new File Explorer has usability issues, e.g. has two context menus instead of just one when users right-click. Microsoft designed the first menu with just a few features, and then there's the Windows 10 menu with all the features.
Thus drag and drop functions and keyboard navigation are always affected by the reduced performance problem.
There is currently no solution to this problem. Affected users may use another third-party file manager. For example the Sigma File Manager application.
The repair is currently being tested in developer build. We may see the patch in the next cumulative update for Windows 11, which will be released on November 9, 2021.
It would be good to wait a few months before upgrade to Windows 10 version 11.
Users who upgraded to Windows 11 this month are experiencing some issues, few of which have been officially confirmed by Microsoft.
George is still wondering what he is doing here….
