Speed up (Dora the) Explorer

Nah, actually we’re just gonna show you how to speed up Windows Explorer. On a PC, especially in Vista, you might notice a slight HUGE lag when you open up Windows Explorer. You know it’s not your computer since you put in a bunch of memory, upgraded the hard drive, put in a new graphics card, etc. But Explorer is still freakin’ slow! Here are a couple of tricks to help ya out:

Set the priority:

1. Open up your Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Escape or Ctrl+Alt+Delete)
2. Click “Processes” and find “explorer.exe”
3. Right click “explorer.exe” and scroll down to “Set Priority”
4. You’re going to be presented with many options. I would not choose “Real Time” since it will make other processes slow. For example, if I was listening to a rockin’ song on iTunes and then opened my Music folder, the song would start to lag (although, just for the amount of time it took the window to load). So, as you can see, your PC will push other processes out of the way in order to speed up Explorer.
   

Disable Network Folders and Printers search (Windows XP and lower):

1. Every time you open Windows Explorer, it will automatically search for shared printers and folders. Chances are, most of the folders you open are probably not going to be on your network so go ahead and open up an Explorer window.
2. Click “Tools” then “Folder Options”
3. Click on the “View” tab and find “Automatically search for network folders and printers”. Uncheck the box.
4. Reboot.

Disable the “Thumbnails” View:

1. This little “trick” is very useful for your Pictures folder.
2. In Vista, open a folder and click the “View” tab. Now, scroll down to the “Small Icons” or “List” options. Details will also work, but Vista has to search through each file to find out the information for each tab.
3. In XP, click “View” and choose the “Small Icons” or “List” options.
4. Another tip: Click your “File Options” button. Now, click “View” and find the option that says “Display File Icon as Thumbnail”. Uncheck it. I’m not sure if this is an option in XP, but why not give it a try.
5. You are going to have to repeat this to multiple folders as this setting will only be applied to the one folder you’re in.

I’m sure there are a plethora of ways to speed up Windows Explorer, but these seem to work very well for me. If you have heard of any other tricks, why not tell me in the comments?