How to open File Explorer in Windows 10

Explorer is a program that is a file manager and an environment for providing the user with access to file system his computer. It is responsible for displaying windows Windows environment, context menus. In Windows operating systems released after 1995, a window interface appears, which greatly simplifies user interaction with the computer’s file system. Over the course of its more than 20-year development, the conductor has acquired new capabilities and functions, which were hardly noticeable from version to version. But Windows exit 10 changed everything. Its shell for providing access to the file system has grown into a full-fledged, however, one-panel file manager with many functions and, accordingly, parameters. Many of them can be changed by the user in the Windows 10 Explorer window itself, but the developers hid some options from the eyes of curious users. Their configuration can only be done by editing the corresponding registry keys manually or using special applications– tweakers.

Today we’ll look at how to configure the conductor in the “top ten” using both methods.

Using the capabilities of the “tens”

Unlike even Windows 7, the 10th edition of the OS has a lot of new features that you need to consider and learn how to configure in order to use them.

“Quick access panel” - in the left frame of the explorer there is a menu where system libraries and user-added directories are pinned for quickly moving to them or performing any manipulations with them (inserting files).

By dragging the icon of any directory, you can pin it in Explorer.

Ribbon.

Perhaps the most notable thing about Explorer is the ribbon copied from Office, which replaces the toolbar. Its useful feature is the ability to add almost any command to the ribbon, as in Office 2013. This is done using context menu dedicated team.

Element checkboxes.

When working with files and directories, especially when copying them, for example, while putting things in order on a hard drive, operating systems released before Windows 10 lacked the function of placing checkboxes or ticks next to the icons of file system elements. It appeared in the “top ten”, and to activate this feature you need to check this very box next to the “Element flags” option.

Setting the type of visualization and the type of sorting/grouping of Explorer icons and many other options are no different from similar functions in Windows 7, so you shouldn’t dwell on them. It’s much more interesting to get into the jungle of the system database - the registry and see what other settings the Windows 10 developers allow you to change experienced users using third-party tools or directly changing their values through the registry editor.

Third party apps

Windows 10 Manager allows you to configure a considerable number of Explorer settings that cannot be changed using the OS itself (except for editing registry keys). This is done in the “Settings” tab.

System Configuration

By clicking on the button called “System Settings”, we will see the presence of a pair of tabs called “Explorer”.

There are a lot of parameters here that can be changed by selecting available drop-down menu items or by checking or removing checkboxes. Among them:

disabling the navigation bar or its individual elements;
deactivating the sorting by number and auto-sorting options;
turning off thumbnails or framing thumbnails;
tape behavior;
options for displaying disk names;
editing or disabling the context menu.

The context menu manager gives Windows user 10 possibility of advanced customization of any type of context menu electronic document: deleting, editing and changing items, including executing a sequence of system commands, running them as an administrator, replacing icons.

Win+X menu editor

The menu, named after the key combination that calls it, provides instant access to any command added to it.

But the trouble is that you can edit it standard means it is forbidden. To configure it, you can use the menu editor offered by the Windows 10 Manager application.

Icons

Icons are also elements of Explorer and the “tens” tools do not allow you to change most of them. " Visual customization» provides the ability to replace any icon with your own or one selected from those present in the system.

As you can see, third-party application developers provide much larger set opportunities to configure almost any explorer parameters than the Tens developers.

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Almost every operating system has a file manager - an application that manages files and directories. In Windows 10 this is File Explorer. Actually, Explorer is the entire Windows shell, but here we will consider only those functions that relate to file and directory management.

How to open Windows 10 File Explorer

To open Explorer, either click the button with the image of a folder on the taskbar, or open the main menu and select the Explorer command. There is no difference between these two launch methods.

New look for Windows 10 Explorer

Compared to Windows 7, the Explorer interface in Windows 10 has changed significantly. Starting with Windows 8, Explorer and other standard Windows applications They use a completely different design style. Instead of menus and small buttons on toolbars, tabs are used that contain large toolbars with large buttons and captions under them for basic functions and small buttons for additional ones.

At the top of the Explorer there are just such tabs, the commands of which will be discussed a little later. On the left is the Quick Access Toolbar. Centered work area, and at the bottom is the status bar. It usually displays the number of selected elements and their size.

What I like about Ten is the ability to quickly pin and remove an item to/from the Quick Access Toolbar. Click on the folder, file right click mouse, and you will see a context menu where there will be commands (among others): Pin to Quick Access Toolbar and Remove from Quick Access Toolbar. The purpose of these commands, I think, is clear.

The default Quick Access Toolbar contains the following items:

Desktop - shows the contents of your desktop (program icons, documents).
Downloads - The Edge browser and many other programs place files downloaded from the Internet in this folder.
Documents are your documents.
Images - Images, although some applications may store images and photos in other folders.
Video, Music - video and music files.
OneDrive - the contents of your Internet drive.
This computer provides access to logical partitions, optical drives and other removable media.
Network - allows you to view other computers that are on your network.
Homegroup - allows you to view computers that are members of your homegroup.

If you've been using Mac OS X, you'll be disappointed with Windows. The Videos, Music, Documents, Images folders are actually virtual folders - libraries. The library combines several directories (we will show you how to manage libraries in Windows later), for example, you can specify that music should be searched in the C:\Users\Mark\Music and D:\My Music folders. Then, when you open the Music library, you will see the combined contents of these two folders.

In Mac OS X, the library displays all files of a given type at once, no matter what folder they are located in, and there is no need to create (configure) the library in advance. In Windows, you first need to set up the library, and even if you place music in a directory different from the one specified when setting up the library, the system will not show it when viewing the library. This is such an inconvenience.

The contents of the This PC item are shown below. As you can see, there are two logical drives - C: and E:, a DVD drive named D: and... floppy disk drive A:. In fact, this is a virtual encrypted disk created by the VeraCrypt program - so that no one will guess.

On the Computer tab (it becomes active only when you select This Computer) you will find the following buttons:

Properties - opens the properties window for the selected disk. The properties window allows you to view how much free space is left on the disk, as well as call various service functions such as disk cleanup, defragmentation, etc. Chapter 21 is devoted to disk maintenance.
Open - opens the contents of the selected disk. You can double-click on it with the mouse, or you can select the Open command, whatever is convenient for you.
Rename - allows you to change the disk label. The label does not affect anything, and you can use it as an information field for yourself. For example, if you have several partitions, you can use one to store movies and call it Documents if you only store documents on it.
Media access - allows you to connect to a multimedia server, if one is deployed on your network.
Connect network drive- allows you to connect a network drive and work with it as with a regular drive.
Add Network Location - Opens the Add Network Location Wizard window, which allows you to create a shortcut to a website, FTP site, or network location (a computer in local network providing general access to files).
Open settings - opens the computer settings window, which can also be accessed through the main menu.
Remove or change a program - learn how to install or remove a program.
System properties - opens the system properties window, we will talk about it in the next material.
Management - opens the Computer Management snap-in.

Windows 10 System Properties

Let's look at the system properties window. This window displays basic information about Windows versions, about activation, about processor and volume RAM. But this is not only an information window; on the left panel there are links that provide access to the device manager and settings remote access, system protection and additional parameters systems.

Additional tabs may appear in the Explorer window, it all depends on what object is in at the moment selected, for example, if a video file is selected, the Video Tools tab will appear. By and large, there are few tools for working with video; for example, you can play all the videos in a folder, play only one video, or add it to a playlist.

The user's home directory occupies a special place in the file system. Home directories are stored in the C:\Users directory, and the directory of a specific user is stored in a subdirectory of this directory, for example, in C:\Users\Mark. There is nothing interesting in it, and most of the subfolders of this directory are accessible through the quick access panel.

Typically, programs save settings in one of the subfolders of the AppData directory, which is located in the user directory. The purpose of the remaining directories is clear from their names.

There is no doubt that of all the Windows 10 tools, File Explorer (formerly known as Windows Explorer) is used most often. And yet, many who consider themselves Windows experts are only superficially familiar with this incredibly rich built-in application.
The basic principles of file organization are simple:

Combine files in several easy-to-access locations.
For more effective search, use keywords and descriptive words in file names.
Use powerful search tools in File Explorer.
Have backups files.

Understanding how best to use File Explorer requires some knowledge of how Windows itself organizes files. Some of these subtleties are incredibly obvious, others are so hidden that even an experienced hand can miss them.

The file explorer, by default, has its own button on the taskbar. If you prefer to use a keyboard, use an easy-to-remember keyboard shortcut, logo Windows + E.

With a few tweaks, you can personalize the file explorer's layout to suit your style.

The ribbon located at the top of the file explorer resembles its counterpart in Microsoft Office, but has one key difference - it is not customizable. The only thing you can do is double-click on any of the tab titles to hide its contents. With feed content hidden, headers resemble an old-fashioned menu bar, but there's more room for a content area.

The navigation panel on the left is assembled into nodes that expand and collapse on demand. If you prefer the older style of a tree view with a single hierarchy, select This PC, then on the View tab, go to the Navigation Pane, then select Show All Folders.

With the "Show all folders" option, the navigation bar looks like the image below. (Note that a shortcut menu is shown here to make the listing more compact.)

After selecting the "Show all folders" option, only two anchor points will be displayed in the navigation bar: Quick Access and Desktop.

An optional element, hidden by default, an area that appears to the right of the content area. Depending on the option you select on the View tab, in the Panel group, a preview of the current element or details about it will be displayed. The figure below shows that the area preview for photography high resolution saved in JPEG format. Windows 10 has filters for previewing most photo formats, Office documents, PDF files and other common document formats.

The following image shows the part panel for one file.

If the detail panel is selected, you can edit metadata for the current file. Save and Cancel buttons appear at the bottom of the panel.

Changing Quick View

Sometimes you want to see a list listing detailed information about a file, and sometimes you want to see thumbnails of all the files in a folder. No problem, in any file explorer window, using the small buttons in its lower right corner, you can switch between detail view mode and thumbnail view. Detail view is especially useful if you want to filter the contents of a folder.

As mentioned earlier, you can't customize the Ribbon, but you can position the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) however you want. By default, QAT appears in the title bar, above the feed. If you want to move it lower, click the down arrow to the right of it and then the "Show Below Ribbon" button. QAT in this new position is a modified option, so you can always move it back above the tape.

The same menu contains a short list of the most frequently used commands, which can always be added to quick access. To add commands that are on the ribbon but not in this menu, click the right team right-click and select “Add to Quick Access Toolbar” from the context menu that appears.

And further, one of the little-known secrets of setting up QAT. You can add groups of commands to the Quick Access Toolbar. For example, go to the “View” tab, at the bottom of the “Panels” group, right-click on the desired shortcut and select “Add to Quick Access Toolbar”. Now, when you click on this shortcut in QAT, you will be able to select the preview area or the details panel.

Organize files using the Quick Access option

The shortcut option always appears at the top of the navigation bar. Its only task is to provide you with quick access to frequently used files and folders. Having secured the location of the items you need, you can customize it.

The quick access option is one of the most important additions to the file explorer. As mentioned earlier, organizing files located in different places is one of the first steps towards overall organization. Once you have identified these locations, attach shortcuts to them in the quick access point and easily open what you need.

To pin to the quick access list required disk, folder, library or section, right-click on it and select “Pin for quick access” from the context menu. To remove an unnecessary item, right-click on it in the quick access list and select “Remove from quick access”.

Recently opened folders appear at the bottom of the Quick Access list. If the Quick Access heading is selected, the pinned and recent folders for that group will appear at the top of the content pane, with recently opened files underneath them.

You can view this list of recent files (and even pin a shortcut to your Quick Access Toolbar) by going to %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent. You can get to this location even faster by opening the Run field and entering shell:recent. Some additional settings You can find quick access in the Folder Options dialog box. Where, at the very top, you can specify whether you want new Explorer windows to open as a quick access or as standard as “This PC”.

If you need to, uncheck one or both of the options in the Privacy section at the bottom of the folder options window, which will prevent Recents from appearing in Quick Access open files and folders. Click the Clean button to clean out the Recent folder and remove all shortcuts (except those you've attached).

Using Libraries and Known Folders

The longer you use your computer, the better you understand the hierarchy of folders, which begin with drives and letters.

But, if you are ready to give up old habits, you can significantly increase your productivity using the Windows 10 file explorer. The secret is to master the so-called famous folders of your profile - user documents, downloads, music, pictures, videos, and so on. And most importantly, learn to use libraries, which are a very effective way to collect files from several folders located in different places into virtual folders in which it is easy to search and filter information.

In the "clean" Windows installation 10, archives hidden. If you don't see the "libraries" link in the navigation bar, go to the "View" menu and check the "Show libraries" option. By default, the library mainly displays duplicate documents, music, photos and videos from the user's profile. If you don't plan to customize these libraries or create your own, you can keep them hidden. But there are many advantages to using libraries.

Adding folders to the library

To view and manage folders in an existing library, to make the Manage tab visible (under the Library Tools heading), first click on it, then select Manage Library. The image below shows the results for the Documents library with files taken from four folders - the default Documents folder in the user profile, two separate OneDrive synced folders, and shared folder under the name of a company located on a network file server.

The document library expansion option in the navigation bar shows separate entry for each folder contained in the library. To view individual folders you can use these links. More importantly, all folders in the library are automatically indexed, meaning you can search and filter content from multiple sources as if they were in the same folder. Additionally, all files in the library are supported by the File History feature.

To add a folder to an existing library, first click on the Manage Library button, then the Add button, and then navigate to the folder you want to include in the library. An easier way is to right-click on the desired folder and select “Include in Library” from the context menu. This option shows a list of existing libraries.

Right-click on the folder and to add it to an existing library, use the context menu, or to create a new library, use the “Create New Library” option at the bottom of the menu.

The attentive reader will undoubtedly notice that the list of libraries available in the context menu contains two of them that are not on the navigation panel. The Photos app, for its own use, creates camera and photo libraries, something that other apps can do as well.

To create your own library, use the “Create a new library” option at the bottom of this menu. Or, alternatively, click the library title in the navigation bar, then right-click in the content pane and select New, then select the library. Once you open a new library, click "Include in Folder" and add the directory you want, to add multiple folders, select the manage library option.

Moving data folders to another location

You can move known user profile folders - documents, downloads, music, pictures, and so on - to another location. This is especially useful if you are using a desktop PC with two physical disks. For example, as a system disk - small, fast solid state drive(SSD), and regular hard drive with larger capacity for data files. The effect of moving is most noticeable if your collection of digital music or photos is too large to fit comfortably on system disk where she usually is. The process is very simple. Open your user profile (the easiest way is to enter address bar%UserProfile%), right-click on the folder you want to move and from the context menu, select the "Location" tab. Next, a dialog box will open.

Here you can enter the path to the moving folder or click the “Move” button and point to the location you need (with the ability to create a new folder). To change the location, click Apply or OK. When you do this, you will see a dialog box as shown here:

Answer - Yes, if you do not want the folder (and its contents) to be saved to your user profile. Repeat this process for any other roaming folders in your profile. By the way, it is quite normal to mix and match locations for these famous folders. In fact, this tweak is also convenient because you can easily see the current location for all folders.

In the file explorer address bar, type %UserProfile%, open your user profile, then press Enter.
Switch to detail view if necessary.
Right-click on the header of any column, then select “Next” at the bottom of the context menu that appears. The Part Selection dialog box will open:

Select the folder path from the list and click OK.

The contents of the File Explorer window should now look like the following image. Here, you will immediately see that the download folders and pictures have been transferred.

By adding folder paths to the list displayed in the detail view, you will immediately see where each of the user profile folders is located.

This instruction tells you how to open File Explorer on your computer. Windows control. In Windows 10 and 8 this application is called "File Explorer", while in Windows 7 and Vista it is called "Windows Explorer".

Quick Guide

1. Open " Start» .
2. Enter Conductor(Windows 10 and 8) or conductor Windows (Windows 7 and Vista).
3. Click the appropriate result.

How to open File Explorer in Windows 10 and 8

Click Folder icon on the taskbar.
Press the keyboard shortcut ⊞ Win +E.
Right click Start and click " Conductor» .
Click the Start button, then click the folder icon on the left.

How to open File Explorer in Windows 7 and Vista

Open menu "Start", Click Windows logo in the lower left corner of the screen or press ⊞ Win key.
Enter explorer. You should see a folder icon at the top of the Start window.
Click File Explorer. It's a folder icon at the top of the Start window. This will open the File Explorer app.
Opening Windows Explorer, you can "pin it" to the taskbar, which will allow you to launch File Explorer with one click. Right-click the File Explorer icon at the bottom of the screen, then click Snap to taskbar.

Let's consider alternative ways opening Windows Explorer.

Several different ways:

Click ⊞ Win +E .
Click the Start button, then click "Computer" .

Most users personal computer More than once we have discovered problems with Explorer in Windows 10. Sometimes it freezes, does not respond to operations, and sometimes does not open at all. Even after large-scale updates operating system The error with the conductor remains.

Fixing the problem

In order to find out why File Explorer freezes in Windows 10, how to fix it this error, it is necessary to carry out the following actions.

Reinstalling updates

Open System Settings and look for the tab "Updates and Security".

Let's go to the Center Windows updates, check for important updates and install them.

There are cases when it is worth trying to remove the old update, then replace it with a new one. This is done like this: in the Update Center, go to "View update history" and remove installed updates.

Through the command interpreter

When you can’t start Explorer, you can do this using the Run line:

Use built-in troubleshooting tools

If Explorer is slow in Windows 10, you need to undergo a system scan to identify any extraneous problems or failures. We carry out this step using command line in administrator mode, entering the following characters one by one:

sfc/scannow
dism/online/cleanup-image/scanhealth
dism/online/cleanup-image/restorehealth

Now be sure to restart the computer.

Viruses

Sometimes the work of the conductor can be affected not only system errors, but also viral software. Therefore, it is necessary to check your system using popular antivirus software.

Restoring Explorer functionality through the Windows event log

Third party software

In some cases, Explorer may fail on Windows 10 due to errors in the registry. They are corrected CCleaner program, which scans the system and removes damaged items.

There is also one utility that not many people know about - Malwarebytes. It will quickly and efficiently scan thousands of files on your computer. There are times when popular antiviruses cannot cope with the problem, and this program Maybe. She has free version, which makes it as accessible as possible. Maybe this application will solve the error with the conductor. To do this, you need to download and install it, and then start scanning automatically.

Conclusion

There are many ways to solve the problem with the conductor freezing, but it is not a fact that all of them are effective. This article only described best options troubleshoot this problem. Complete all the above operations and your explorer will work again.