Although Windows File Explorer is famous for managing files, its importance to the system is definitely not as simple as just a file management tool. Many processes or functions in the Windows operating system are closely related to the file explorer (such as the start menu, taskbar, notification center, desktop icons, etc. in the Windows operating system), if the file explorer has problems or crashes, Many functions of the computer will be affected, which will bring a bad user experience and greatly affect the performance of the computer.

While restarting the process (explorer.exe) itself can resolve these issues, the instances of various functions becoming unresponsive or crashing are likely to be greatly reduced if these functions can no longer be associated with explorer.exe.

Microsoft is naturally aware of this, and recently there are developersFindMicrosoft began to take some measures to separate the various functions originally associated with the file explorer (explorer.exe), and can run independently, no longer associated with the file explorer.

The developer of Start Is All Back, a third-party start menu application for Windows, has discovered some of the earliestclue:

Interesting feature in dev 25252: ImmersiveShellInShellAppRuntime (id: 39319758). Move the immersive shell out of explorer.

Based on his findings, Microsoft has now separated Impressive Shell from File Explorer. Impressive Shell was added to the system in Windows 8 and was initially responsible for features such as Charms Bar. Impressive Shell is associated with a process named “ShellAppRuntime.exe”, which in turn is associated with explorer.exe. Today in newer Windows builds, users can already start and run explorer.exe independently without it.

At present, Microsoft has only separated a small function from the file explorer, and many other functions of the Windows system are still closely connected with the file explorer. But in the future, all functions of Windows 11 are expected to be taken out separately and become independent processes. For Windows systems, this should greatly reduce crashes and improve system performance. For Microsoft developers, this move can also speed up the development of some functions.

Microsoft’s changes to the system are still in the early stages, and users should not feel any changes in a short time.