Microsoft’s new attempt to speed up Windows 11’s File Explorer by preloading it in the background delivers only modest gains and still leaves it slower than Windows 10’s older, non‑preloaded Explorer, while consuming additional memory.
Independent testing on a 4 GB RAM virtual machine shows File Explorer’s process rising from roughly 32.4 MB in a default configuration to about 67.4 MB with preloading enabled, yet Windows 10’s Explorer on a low‑end PC with only 2 GB RAM still opens faster and feels more responsive.
What Microsoft is changing in Windows 11
The preloading tweak is currently rolling out to Windows 11 Insiders in Dev and Beta channels as part of build 26220.7271 (KB5070307). File Explorer now loads components in the background during idle time so that the first window appears more quickly once the desktop is in use.
Microsoft promotes the change as a way to reduce the long‑standing delay users notice when opening File Explorer for the first time after booting.
According to Microsoft and early coverage, the feature remains enabled by default but exposes a toggle in Folder Options, under the View tab, labeled “Enable window preloading for faster launch times.” Wider distribution is targeted for early 2026, likely aligned with the 26H1 update for Windows 11.
This strategy follows earlier efforts such as Office’s old Startup Assistant and Edge’s Startup Boost, all built around the same idea: move work to idle periods to present a snappier interface later.
Test results: faster launch, but still behind Windows 10
Practical testing by Windows Latest outlines the trade‑offs with quantifiable data.
On a Windows 11 virtual machine with 4 GB of RAM:
Before preloading, the File Explorer process occupied about 32.4 MB of memory while the system sat idle, with no Explorer window open.
After enabling preloading, an additional background Explorer instance consumed around 35 MB, raising total Explorer‑related usage to approximately 67.4 MB at idle.
In everyday terms, that extra 35 MB is trivial for modern hardware, and the preloaded Explorer does show genuinely quicker launch times, particularly when the system is under heavy load.
In tests with multiple Microsoft Edge tabs and the Microsoft Store running, side‑by‑side slow‑motion capture revealed that the preloaded Explorer opens noticeably sooner than the non‑preloaded version on the same Windows 11 machine.
However, when compared directly with Windows 10, the narrative changes. The same tester placed preloaded Windows 11 Explorer next to classic Windows 10 Explorer on a much weaker device with only 2 GB of RAM and significantly less free storage.
Despite that hardware disadvantage, Windows 10’s Explorer still opened faster, both in real time and in 0.25x slow‑motion analysis. The right‑click context menu and other UI elements on Windows 10 also appeared more immediate and stable than their Windows 11 counterparts.
In other words, preloading narrows the gap within Windows 11 itself but does not erase the regression in responsiveness introduced with the Windows 11 redesign.
RAM usage and startup trade‑offs
Microsoft and several early reports describe the impact on memory as minimal, emphasizing that the additional tens of megabytes should not trouble most systems.
On paper, the numbers support that framing: a roughly 35 MB increase on a 4 GB machine translates to less than one percent of total RAM.
Still, this overhead joins a long list of background processes and services already present in Windows 11. On entry‑level devices or older corporate hardware, each extra always‑running component contributes to a thicker baseline footprint.
Technology press coverage has also raised the question of whether shifting work from the first Explorer launch to system startup simply moves the delay rather than eliminating it.
For now, initial testing suggests that overall system stability and memory behavior remain acceptable with preloading enabled, and no serious regressions have surfaced in early builds.
The change resembles a targeted optimization rather than a deep architectural fix.
Why Windows 11’s File Explorer still feels slower
The core reason lies beneath the surface. Both Windows 10 and Windows 11 rely on the same Win32/COM shell foundation (explorer.exe and shell32); Microsoft did not rewrite the underlying file‑management engine.
What changed in Windows 11 is the user interface layer.
Windows 10 largely presents a classic Win32 UI, whereas Windows 11 wraps that legacy engine in modern WinUI and XAML components, often through XAML Islands. This hybrid arrangement introduces extra rendering layers and more complex interactions between old and new UI technologies.
Each interaction—opening a window, animating a menu, drawing translucent effects—passes through more code and more abstraction than the relatively direct path in Windows 10.
Community discussion has repeatedly criticized this stacking of frameworks. Commenters highlight that a fundamental system utility such as File Explorer now mixes technologies in ways that prioritize visual modernity over raw responsiveness.
On top of that, deeper integration with cloud services such as OneDrive, richer metadata views, dynamic recommendations, and other background features push more work into each navigation and context‑menu call.
Preloading addresses only the cost of initialization, not the ongoing overhead of these layered UI technologies and background hooks.
As a result, once a window is open, delays in loading the Home page, populating the navigation pane, and drawing the context menu remain conspicuous in Windows 11, even with preloading active.
User sentiment: frustration and nostalgia for older Windows
The new tests have reinforced frustration in enthusiast and professional communities that already viewed Windows 11 as slower than its predecessors.
Threads on Windows‑focused and technology subreddits frequently describe Windows 11 as “sticky” or “sluggish” compared not only with Windows 10, but even with Windows 7 on similar hardware.
Several users report side‑by‑side deployments of Windows 7, 10, and 11 on identical configurations, with Windows 7 described as the most responsive, Windows 10 as acceptable, and Windows 11 as noticeably heavier and more cumbersome in daily use.
Enterprise administrators echo similar observations, noting internal deployments where a minority of systems migrated to Windows 11 have met with widespread user complaints about slower performance across everyday tasks—including file management.
The preloading feature has therefore drawn a mixed response: some welcome any measurable improvement to File Explorer’s first‑launch time, while others dismiss the change as a “band‑aid” that avoids confronting the underlying architectural and design decisions.
Third‑party file managers highlight missed opportunities
One of the more revealing aspects of the current situation is the comparison with third‑party file managers. Windows Latest’s tests reference File Pilot, a modern file manager still in beta that nonetheless starts and responds more quickly than Windows 11’s preloaded Explorer.
Context menus in File Pilot appear almost instantly, including functions similar to the “smart” actions that load slowly inside Explorer.
Such comparisons underscore that high‑performance file management remains entirely achievable on modern Windows, even with rich feature sets and contemporary UI styling.
The gap points more toward Microsoft’s implementation and priorities than to inherent limits of the platform.
A small improvement that leaves the bigger problem untouched
Taken in isolation, File Explorer preloading in Windows 11 delivers what Microsoft promises: shorter delays before the first Explorer window appears, especially under load, in exchange for a small, persistent increase in RAM usage.
For users already on Windows 11 and sensitive to that initial hesitation, the change offers a noticeable, though modest, quality‑of‑life improvement.
Placed in historical context, however, the feature also highlights how far File Explorer has drifted from the snappy, low‑overhead behavior of earlier Windows versions.
Even in its preloaded state on stronger hardware, Windows 11’s Explorer still loses direct comparisons with Windows 10’s classic implementation running on much weaker machines.
Unless Microsoft undertakes deeper optimization of the UI stack and its interaction with the legacy shell, File Explorer is likely to remain a symbol of Windows 11’s heavier, more layered direction.
Preloading shifts a portion of the waiting time out of sight, but the experience still reflects design choices that favor complex, framework‑rich interfaces over the immediacy that defined earlier generations of Windows.
