If your taskbar, system tray, or Start menu acts up, you might be tempted to restart your PC. Instead, you can usually just restart Windows Explorer. Windows makes it pretty easy whether you’re using Windows 11, Windows 10, Windows 8, or Windows 7. 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, taskbar, notification area, and File Explorer. Occasionally, any of these pieces that make up the Windows graphical shell can start acting strangely or even hang. Just like you can close and restart an app that’s acting up, you can also close and restart Windows Explorer. Restarting Windows Explorer can also be handy if you’ve just installed a new app or applied a Registry tweak that would normally require you to restart your PC. Restarting Explorer doesn’t always work in those cases, but it’s easy enough to try it first if you want to avoid a full restart. Here are a few ways you can restart Windows Explorer. Option One: Restart Explorer from Task Manager The Task Manager offers the traditional way to restart Windows Explorer. It was overhauled for Windows 8, 10, and 11, so we’ve got instructions for you whether you’re using those or Windows 7. Restart Explorer from Task Manager in Windows 11 The best way to open the Task Manager in Windows 11 is to hit Ctrl+Shift+Esc. You could also click the Start button, type “Task Manager” into the search bar,… Click below to read the full story from How To Geek
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