After installation of Sep 26 update, a nice bump in performance for File Explorer

hsehestedt · Sep 27, 2023

Anyone notice that File Explorer seems to have a nice bump in performance since the update yesterday? I looked into this and it turns out that the new File Explorer is finally multi-threaded. Huge difference in calculating the number of files to be copied at the start when you are copying millions of files and even operations like copying of the files is getting a nice boost on fast SSDs.

Aside from the performance, I also LOVE the tear away tabs - FINALLY!

Franceska · Sep 27, 2023

For my part I don't know about the responsiveness but for the appearance I am very disappointed. In "content" mode the icons have become too small and there is only the other option "mosaic" which I don't really like but which I choose since the other aspect that I put before now I don't like it at all. Hoping a developer will find a way to change this!

Capture d’écran 2023-09-27 113829(1).png

glasskuter · Sep 27, 2023

Dumb question @hsehestedt but what is a tear away tab?

hsehestedt · Sep 27, 2023

I have to admit that I never use content mode so I am not familiar with what it looked like before. Hopefully someone else can contribute some information about this.

MitchAtHome · Sep 27, 2023

I'm with glasskutter Whats a tear away tab ?

hsehestedt · Sep 27, 2023

glasskuter said:
Dumb question @hsehestedt but what is a tear away tab?

Not at all a dumb question! What I mean is this:

Open more than one tab in File Explorer. Click on one of the tabs and keep holding the mouse button down and drag it away from File Explorer ("tear" it away). Now, let go of the mouse button. That tab will open in a new File Explorer window. Likewise, you can drag the tab from one File Explorer window to another File Explorer window to combine them (it adds itself as another tab).

I love this because I often copy from one window to another. It's just easier to have two windows to work with. But then, to avoid clutter, I combine them again into a single tabbed window when I am not actively performing an operation between them.

EDIT: I do the same thing in my web browser. I like to sometimes have pages open side by side for comparison, but then I rejoin what I tore away to the main window when I no longer need to have them open side by side. Finally, the same holds true of Notepad now.

MitchAtHome · Sep 27, 2023

Who'd a thunk ........... Learn something new every day

hsehestedt · Sep 27, 2023

MitchAtHome said:
Who'd a thunk ........... Learn something new every day

Cool, isn't it? Yeah, there are so many little details to explore that I am constantly learning something new. The trick is trying to remember everything

glasskuter · Sep 27, 2023

Well I'll be dipped in ....(you know what) That's slick.

pparks1 · Sep 27, 2023

i installed the update on my windows 11 test box at home, but haven't yet had a second to login and check it. (Pesky job). But I am looking forward to having the tear away tabs.

wiganken · Sep 27, 2023

hsehestedt said:
I have to admit that I never use content mode so I am not familiar with what it looked like before. Hopefully someone else can contribute some information about this.

Could 'Content mode' mean the 'View>Layout>Content' as per photo?

hdmi · Sep 28, 2023

hsehestedt said:
Huge difference in calculating the number of files to be copied at the start when you are copying millions of files and even operations like copying of the files is getting a nice boost on fast SSDs.

Copying millions of files via copy-paste with File Explorer is still asking for trouble. Can it handle long paths? Does it offer a proper way to resume the copying after an error, like, does it have per-file logging capability? Also, do these millions of files have to be read only one time if the goal is to calculate and store hashcodes whilst copying the files? With FastCopy, which came to existence a whole 19 years ago, the answer to each one of these simple questions is yes. Sorry, but there's no "boost on fast SSDs" to be had from Microsoft... The race was already over, long before SSDs became popular. Next, my beard turned grey, and, the race was still over. And continues to be that.

hsehestedt said:
Aside from the performance, I also LOVE the tear away tabs - FINALLY!

The first thing I did when tabs were introduced in File Explorer was just that... to disable tabs in File Explorer. That is, by bringing the old File Explorer back (this can easily be done with ExplorerPatcher by changing its Control Interface setting to Windows 10 Ribbon). Some noticeable bugs in File Explorer immediately went away permanently after I did that. I use Classic Explorer features of Open-Shell also in addition to this. I use it for things like being able to use a custom command to generate a filelist from selected items in File Explorer. I added another custom command to run FastCopy with the filelist as its source parameter, and another one to select the filelist's items in File Explorer. It's all simple batch code. Ivo Beltchev's original help file (.chm) is still included with Open-Shell even today, complete with his code examples of how to get your batchfiles to work with Classic Explorer custom commands. It's not rocket science. (Even, if there are a few minor "limitations" to be aware of if choosing to go this route... but then I'd still wager no one has died from asking for help.)