Windows 11 bug makes File Explorer faster

There is a bug in Windows File Explorer that ironically improves the program’s performance. Wrong Makes file search even faster and requires manual activation by the user.

The discovery was shared by an informant on X (formerly Twitter) who videotaped the error. The process is pretty simple: just change File Explorer to fullscreen and windowed to significantly improve page load times.

Did you know that you can speed up Explorer using bugs?

It turns out that toggling fullscreen mode (F11) on and off significantly improves load times!

I wish this was the performance we got out of the box.

(Yes the navbar does break..but the navbar shouldn’t cause such a big speed regression..) pic.twitter.com/GObybf1C8q

“Vivy? (@VivyVCCS) September 3, 2023

Since this is a bug, everything doesn’t work as expected after enabling it. For example, the navigation bar completely crashes after changing modes.

To toggle File Explorer’s full screen mode on or off, simply press the F11 button while the app is in the foreground. The Windows community has also created and released a script to make this action even more instantaneous. The source can be downloaded from GitHub (use at your own risk).

Workaround to real problem

One of the main complaints about File Explorer is its slowness. In the latest versions of Windows 10 and Windows 11, many users suffer from unnecessarily long program loading times.

The bug is basically a solution to this problem, albeit in the form of a system failure, but the feature probably has a very short shelf life. After Microsoft becomes aware of the problem, they need to prepare a solution and release it as a future update.