Explorer taking 40s to appear

HI all

I updated my Lenovo laptop from W11 23H2 to 25H2 and suddenly the first time I open Explorer it takes 40s to display something.
There is no feedback while it's opening, no windows, nothing. If I click on it again it tends to crash and other apps will hang if I try to open them while Explorer is in that weird state.

Once Explorer opens, it's fine. I can close it and open it again and it opens immediately.

I tried waiting a couple of minutes after a reboot before opening Explorer but it's the same thing.

I do have a number of network drives - and some are offline - but I had that before with 23H2 and never had this problem.

I was stuck on 23H2 because my EFI partition had been filled up by Lenovo stuff and Windows Update refused to upgrade. Yesterday I finally shuffled the partitions around and managed to expand the EFI partition - I doubt this has anything to do with this issue but I feel it's fair to mention that.

Can someone point me to a solution please?
Thanks

Revert to classic Explorer. If you need panes, install a third party app.

You have not told us if File Explorer slow while booting.


See booting into clean boot will help.


Scan your computer for malware infections.

Execute Sfc /Scannow command from Command Prompt that is open as an admin.

FreeBooter said:

You have not told us if File Explorer slow while booting.

Click to expand...

Can you elaborate please? I'm not sure I understand.

I'll check the other things later on. Thanks!

Well when does the File Explorer slow at boot time or after boot?

The first time. I mentioned above that I tried waiting 2 minutes after booting - thinking that maybe it was something running in the background - but no. The first time I open it, it takes 30/40s. Then it's fine.

SFC checks fine.

CleanBoot shows the same issue - well, 18s instead of 30/40, I'm not sure it's an improvement :)

Update graphic card driver.

Disconnect attached external devices.

In this video, we delve into the common issue of slow boot times in Windows and how to effectively troubleshoot it using Process Monitor.

@FreeBooter

Thanks but... it's not a slow boot process issue! I can open Explorer after 20 minutes after booting, it will take 30 seconds. Then it'll be fine.

My laptop has zero issues with booting, it boots in 15 seconds and there are no delays at the desktop - regardless, this is not related to a slow boot process.

GPU driver is already up to date.

--

Let me add for clarity: IMMEDIATELY after I land on the desktop after a restart I can open apps (Word, Excel, Whatsapp, Edge) and they open up straight away. No delays.

But if I open File Explorer, it hangs. If I hit the Windows key while Explorer is hung, Windows Explorer crashes and reloads.

This is now resolved.

When I assigned a letter to the EFI partition to see what was going on (Lenovo filled it up with its stuff so I couldn't upgrade Windows anymore) I unintentionally assigned an existing letter.

So W was both the EFI partition AND an offline network drive. File Explorer didn't like that.

It's taken a few back and forth with Diskpart but it's gone now and File Explorer now opens immediately.

Note to MS: You really should strengthen that section, assigning two volumes to one letter shouldn't be possible!