How To Restart Windows Explorer In Windows 10

In this article, I am going to show you different ways to restart Windows Explorer in Windows 10 (both Manual and Automatic).

Let me explain first what is Windows Explorer?

Windows Explorer (Explorer.exe) is a program manager process that provides the graphical interface you use to interact with most of Windows—the Start menu, notification area, taskbar, and File Explorer. Sometimes, your Start menu, Taskbar, or System Tray acts up, you might be needed to restart your PC. However, you can usually just restart Windows Explorer and then Windows makes it pretty easy.

Method 1. Restart Explorer from Task Manager (Manual)

This is the easiest way to restart Windows Explorer. To do that, follow these steps below:

Step 1. Press CTRL+SHIFT+ESC keys on your keyboard to open Windows Task manager.

Step 2. In the Task Manager window, go to the “Processes” tab. Scroll down the list of what’s running then find and select “Windows Explorer“.

Step 3. Once selected, click on “Restart” located at the bottom right corner of the window. Windows explorer will be killed and things like your taskbar and Start menu may disappear momentarily.

Step 4. You can now exit Task Manager.

Method 2. Exit Explorer from Start Menu (Manual)

This is a safer and easier way than the above method. In this way, the Windows explorer exits properly while saving your settings, instead of just killing it on the spot. To do that, follow these steps below:

Step 1. Press Ctrl+Shift while right-clicking any empty area of the taskbar.

Step 2. On the modified context menu, you will see the option of “Exit Explorer“. Click on it and Windows Explorer will exit after saving all the settings.

Method 3. Restart Explorer with a Batch File (Automatic)

If you want to restart Explorer more quickly and avoid using Task Manager altogether, you can put together a simple batch file to do the job.

Step 1. To begin, open Notepad and copy/paste the following text into three separate lines in your blank text document.

taskkill /f /IM explorer.exe
start explorer.exe
exit

Step 2. Then, you’ll need to save the file with the “.bat” instead of “.txt” extension. Click the “File” menu and then click “Save as…” You need to name the file as “Restart_Explorer.bat” and save the file anywhere you like.