Explorer not responding when a system folder is right clicked in Quick Access

I just set up a new Windows 11 computer. I did not make any changes to the Quick Access section of the File Explorer Navigation Pane, so it shows the usual system folders: Desktop, Downloads, Documents, Pictures, and Videos.

I changed the location of Desktop, Downloads, and Documents from the C: drive to the D: drive. For example, Desktop > Properties shows the location D:\Desktop, rather than C:\Desktop. I have no problems with these.

I changed the location of Pictures and Music from C: to E:, an external SSD. Here is the problem: If I right-click Pictures or Music in Quick Access, Explorer hangs and I have to kill it. There's no problem if I left-click: the folder contents are shown in the Details pane.

One bit of information that may be relevant: I actually defined the locations of Pictures and Music in a subfolder "i" of E:, that is, E:\i\Pictures and E:\i\Music.

Did I do something wrong? What can I do to fix it?

In this Video, i will show you how to fix the slow right-click issues and File Explorer Crashing problems in Windows.

FreeBooter said:

In this Video, i will show you how to fix the slow right-click issues and File Explorer Crashing problems in Windows.

Click to expand...

Very interesting, thank you. I will try it.

I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that Pictures and Music are on an external SSD, and I am referencing them in Quick Access. If I explore files and folders in E:\i\Pictures (their actual location), the problem does not occur.

perkinwarbeck said:

I just set up a new Windows 11 computer.........I changed the location of Desktop, Downloads, and Documents from the C: drive to the D: drive.

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If this is a new computer using a Microsoft account, your Desktop, Documents, and Pictures folders default location was not on the C: drive in the first place. They were located in Onedrive. To get these folders' default location back on your computer, the computer should have first been unlinked from onedrive. Did you do that before you attempted to change the default folder location to D??

glasskuter said:

If this is a new computer using a Microsoft account, your Desktop, Documents, and Pictures folders default location was not on the C: drive in the first place. They were located in Onedrive. To get these folders' default location back on your computer, the computer should have first been unlinked from onedrive. Did you do that before you attempted to change the default folder location to D??

Click to expand...

Yes, I did that first.

perkinwarbeck said:

One bit of information that may be relevant: I actually defined the locations of Pictures and Music in a subfolder "i" of E:, that is, E:\i\Pictures and E:\i\Music.

Click to expand...

Thinking about this that may well be the problem. I have my folders at the root of the drive (partition). example E:\Music
It's easy enough to prove. Create E:\Music or E:\Pictures. Change the folder default location using properties and test to see if right click works like it's supposed to in explorer.

glasskuter said:

Thinking about this that may well be the problem. I have my folders at the root of the drive (partition). example E:\Music
It's easy enough to prove. Create E:\Music or E:\Pictures. Change the folder default location using properties and test to see if right click works like it's supposed to in explorer.

Click to expand...

I agree this is something that needs to be fixed. But I ran into a problem in trying to do it.

As I mentioned in the OP, right-clicking Pictures or Music in the Navigation pane causes Explorer to hang. So I can't get to their properties from there.


However both folders are right-clickable in the right pane. Here are the Pictures properties. There's no Location tab (all the other Folders have Location tabs).


Finally, notice that in File Explorer, the Type field is empty for Pictures, but the Properties say System Folder.

Uhhh...Wow! Could you please tell me exactly how you moved your Music and Pictures folders. Exactly what you did.
And why is that folder read only.

Scratch my question about read only. That's my mistake. Just tell me how you moved the folder in the first place.
Are you double-dog sure your disabled one-drive sync first?

glasskuter said:

Scratch my question about read only. That's my mistake. Just tell me how you moved the folder in the first place.
Are you double-dog sure your disabled one-drive sync first?

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I moved it using the Pictures Location tab (it originally had one). Yes, I disabled one-drive sync before moving any of these:


EDIT. Here's an article that gives a method for restoring the Location tab to a System folder that has "lost" the tab. I never edited the registry before, but if it sounds like it might work, I'll do it. I killed File Explorer so many times that maybe I broke something.

First off, the OP, I have no suggestions to your issue as many things can cause those issues to include moving base folders from their default locations. That out the way....

perkinwarbeck said:

I changed the location of Desktop, Downloads, and Documents from the C: drive to the D: drive. For example, Desktop > Properties shows the location D:\Desktop, rather than C:\Desktop. I have no problems with these.

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As a side note, I'm not a fan of splitting the OS onto different drives. This to me is a recipe for issues. Being I have multiple drives in my system, I simply move the data instead of folders. Example: though my "Pictures" folder is still with the OS drive, my photos are installed on E drive, which is a drive dedicated to my photography. The only thing in the "Pictures" folder are files placed there during setup for Adobe Lightroom's catalog.

BTW, my OS drive, the smallest drive in my system is only 512gig and has the entire OS installed, plus app programs and yet the drive is only 50 percent full. I simply spread my data to other drives dedicated to it - Games, Photos, Music, and other stuff. Data no longer immediately needed is moved to an external drive.

That of course requires a system with multiple drives for such a data management scheme.

My two cents.

perkinwarbeck said:

it sounds like it might work,

Click to expand...

That article includes a downloadable reg file that will add the registry entry for you. Just download the file and double click on it. The good thing is your data is not on your system drive but on D so it is safe.

glasskuter said:

That article includes a downloadable reg file that will add the registry entry for you. Just download the file and double click on it. The good thing is your data is not on your system drive but on D so it is safe.

Click to expand...

If you are talking about the registry entry {4a7ded0a-ad25-11d0-98a8-0800361b1103} (the key in the article I linked to), it is already there!

The data is on my system drive, since I partitioned the system drive into C: and D:.

Sorry, I thought D was a separate drive. May I ask why you chose to partition your system drive into 2 partitions if you were only going to use the second partition for your data. There is no benefit of doing that and as @Dru2 said it does have it's negatives. That aside, let's try to straighten this mess out.
First see if your can restore the 2 folders back into their default location of C:\users\yourusername. Use OPTION 3 in these tutorials.


For both folders, Verify that the properties now shows a location of C:\users\yourusername\foldername
If either folder does not have a location tab, it did not work.
If it was not successful stop here. Report back and we will have to go into a different direction.

If that is successful, you can then attempt to move the two folders' default location to your second partition. For now leave the files where they are.

Navigate to your storage partition D:\ Create new folders there named Pictures and Music at the root of D:

Navigate back to This PC - RIGHT click on existing 'Pictures' folder, select properties.
Click location tab
Click Move button
Click the Select Folder button.
In the explorer window that pops up, browse to the secondary drive and select the Pictures folder you created there.

Click Select Folder, Click Move. Click Ok

You'll see a prompt asking whether you want to move files from the old location to new location. Select NO
To prove to yourself that it worked, when you now go to properties of the Pictures folder in file explorer, it should show location as
D:\Pictures

Repeat this process for your Music folder.

Now lets deal with the files.
navigate to D:\i\Pictures
Move all the files to D:\Pictures.

Open D:\i\Music
Move all the files to D:\Music.(Your can Ctrl+A to select all files)

If there are no more files and folders in D:\i delete the folder.
Let us know if this worked.

glasskuter said:

May I ask why you chose to partition your system drive into 2 partitions if you were only going to use the second partition for your data. There is no benefit of doing that and as @Dru2 said it does have it's negatives.

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The system drive is two 1TB SSD's in RAID 1 configuration. I prefer to have my Documents mirrored, so I put it in partition D on the system drive. I know RAID is not a backup solution. For that, I do daily backups using Macrium.

Pictures is very large - well over 1TB, so I keep it on an external 2TB SSD (E:) along with Music and Videos. In theory, I could change the location of system folders to make more sense. But in practice it is turning out to be not so easy.

I will follow the rest of your instructions first thing tomorrow and post my results. I am very grateful for your help.

glasskuter said:

First see if your can restore the 2 folders back into their default location of C:\users\yourusername. Use OPTION 3 in these tutorials.

Move or Restore Default Location of Pictures Folder in Windows 11 Tutorial

This tutorial will show you how to move or restore the default location of the Pictures folder for your account in Windows 10 and Windows 11. The Pictures folder (shell:My Pictures) is a component of the user profile that is used as a unified location for storing personal data. By default, the...

www.elevenforum.com

Move or Restore Default Location of Music Folder in Windows 11 Tutorial

This tutorial will show you how to move or restore the default location of the Music folder for your account in Windows 10 and Windows 11. The Music folder (shell:My Music) is a component of the user profile that is used as a unified location for storing personal data. By default, the Music...

www.elevenforum.com

...
Let us know if this worked.

Click to expand...

Those two scripts worked beautifully! Problem solved, thank you!