topic Re: Windows 10 File Explorer Freezes in Horizon Desktops and Apps

Windows 10 File Explorer Freezes

mario_981 — Tue, 01 Oct 2019 11:02:15 GMT

Hi Guys

Good Day to everyone, we see a very strange issue with Windows 10 1903 ISO and VMware tools.

We use Horizon 7.9, App Volumes 2.18 , Instant clone , windows 1903 for our desktop environment. I could see new 1903 Image taken from Microsoft with VMware tools 10.3.5 causes Windows explorer top pane to freeze.

Initially I assumed that it was something to do with Horizon , app volumes agent and so on. Later I was able to isolate this issue and was able to reproduce it only with a plain ISO and VMware tools.

I am planning to Install 10.3.10 sometime soon and see if the issue still exists.

One more funny thing about this issue is that when we put Horizon agents on top the same image and make a pool out of it. The issue gets solved when we restart blast service.

Have anyone seen this issue ?

Re: Windows 10 File Explorer Freezes

css1323 — Tue, 26 Nov 2019 17:16:07 GMT

Hello! Seeing if there are any updates. I'm also experiencing issues with file explorer freezing whenever you manually refresh with F5 with Windows 10 LTSC 1809 VM.

To work around this, I'm having to click on the 'quick access' folder shortcuts to check for new files. Also, it takes longer than usual when I'm first logging on to the VM.

Re: Windows 10 File Explorer Freezes

css1323 — Mon, 18 Oct 2021 15:18:10 GMT

Hello @mario_981

I know this is an old post now, but did you ever get to bottom of the freezing issue in Windows OS? Thanks.

Re: Windows 10 File Explorer Freezes

css1323 — Wed, 12 Jan 2022 21:27:36 GMT

Any updates at all?

Re: Windows 10 File Explorer Freezes

Hmunning_DTA — Thu, 13 Jan 2022 10:16:02 GMT

Enable the option "use a separate process for File Explorer" did the trick for us.

Search for and launch "File Explorer Options" using the Start menu.
In the dialog which appears, switch to the "View" tab.
Enable the "Launch folder windows in a separate process" option.

Re: Windows 10 File Explorer Freezes

css1323 — Thu, 13 Jan 2022 16:19:29 GMT

Thanks for the response, but no effect unfortunately.

Pressing F5 to refresh contents of any folder, or bringing up 'save as' dialog box still causes File Explorer/explorer.exe to freeze for 5-10 seconds. Verified OneDrive was uninstalled, removed or disconnected any shared folders or drives, unpinned all 'Quick access' folders. Uninstalled a lot of third party programs one-by-one to see if that had any effect. No idea what's causing this.

Re: Windows 10 File Explorer Freezes

css1323 — Fri, 14 Jan 2022 01:06:23 GMT

I went ahead and used 'Create Windows 10 installation media' option to upgrade VM to latest version of Windows 10 automatically whilst keeping personal files & apps intact. Upgraded from Version 21H1 to Version 21H2 for Windows 10 Pro: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Issues with using F5 to refresh folders, logging on, bringing up 'save as' dialog boxes in Windows all seem to be finally resolved! The same issue was happening on another local PC (non VM) except it was already on Version 21H2. Using same upgrade process also resolved the issue.

Chalkin' it up to a bug perhaps, or the upgrade restored some underlying functions in the OS. Hopefully this helps someone else out there.