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Windows Microsoft

Windows 11's Refreshed File Explorer Gets Tabs, Favorites, and a New Homepage (theverge.com) 71

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Microsoft is bringing tabs to the File Explorer in Windows 11 soon, alongside a refreshed design that makes it easier to quickly access folders or find favorite files. The highly requested tabs feature was first spotted in Windows 11 test builds last month, and now Microsoft is making it official at a hybrid work event for Windows 11 today. From a report: The updated File Explorer design includes tabs to navigate multiple folders in a single window and the ability to move tabs around. Microsoft first started testing tabs in Windows 10 apps, under a feature named Sets. This included support for tabs inside File Explorer, but Microsoft eventually canceled the project and never shipped it to Windows 10 users. Microsoft is also adding a new File Explorer homepage that includes the typical Quick Access folders, recent documents, and a new favorites option. You'll soon be able to right-click a file to add it to favorites, and it will appear pinned on the homepage of File Explorer. There are even improved sharing options for files, with an updated share dialog that lets you send to recent contacts or apps like Teams, Outlook, and OneDrive.
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Windows 11's Refreshed File Explorer Gets Tabs, Favorites, and a New Homepage More

Windows 11's Refreshed File Explorer Gets Tabs, Favorites, and a New Homepage

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  • I mean, rather than me have 17 different instances of File Explorer open.

    • Re:That actually will be useful. (Score:5, Funny)

      by ls671 ( 1122017 ) on Tuesday April 05, 2022 @11:43AM (#62419596) Homepage

      I have to admit this is a genius move! Who would have thought of adding tabs to a file explorer? It took a company with tremendous resources like Microsoft to come up with this brilliant idea and we had to wait until 2022 for the technology being able to support such a breakthrough idea! Kudos to Microsoft! /s

      • Your tongue is poking a hole in your cheek.

        You must remember that there are sycophantic fanbois, waiting for each crumb and morsel of improvement, like a puppy standing at a kitchen table at dinner time.

        One day those puppies grow older, but Pavlov knows the crumbs are tasty, no matter their actual nutrition.

    • I mean, rather than me have 17 different instances of File Explorer open.

      Oddly, for files, I like to have multiple windows open. That way I can see everything at the same time. It's far easier to compare if you have the same directories and files in each than hopping back and forth between tabs.

      But that's me. I like to see everything instead of having to guess at what's there because parts are hidden. It's one of many reasons I moved off of Windows at home. I was tired of Microsofit continuall

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ls671 ( 1122017 )

        I actually use tabs AND additional windows depending on what I want to do.

        By the way, as it is now, the Windows file explorer doesn't open "a new instance" of the program every time you open a new file explorer window unless you specifically ask for it to do so. It just opens a new window running in the same file explorer instance as the previous opened window.

        Also, I seldom use Windows but you can configure your file explorer so it doesn't hide anything, shows full file names, shows hidden files etc.

      • Oddly, for files, I like to have multiple windows open. That way I can see everything at the same time. It's far easier to compare if you have the same directories and files in each than hopping back and forth between tabs.

        Dolphin (KDE's file manager) has had tabs and split views for several years.

    • I pay for groupy.

      It lets me tab everything, and things that are already tabbed I get 2 tiers of tabs.

      It works so smoothly I'm sort of surprised it's not a built in option.

      I wish stardock made an always on top button too, since the other options I've tried are fairly meh in usage.

  • They added one feature, in the wrong spot, but fixed none of the issues explorer currently has.
    • MS is just adding bling to a stable release. It won't be stable if they fixed the issues and made all the popular hacks obsolete.

  • Web Browser for files (Score:3, Funny)

    by NFN_NLN ( 633283 ) on Tuesday April 05, 2022 @11:39AM (#62419574)

    So they effectively made a web browser for files? I can't wait for pop-up ads and captchas to be introduced.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by splutty ( 43475 )

      They already did that 'as a test'. So expect it to be actually implemented soon enough.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      I can't wait for pop-up ads

      Already a part of your Slashdot experience (in spite of the 'Ads Disabled' checkbox).

    • Yeah...why not just make ANY web browser capable of doing the same operations? No need for your own tool there...

  • Wow that took awhile (Score:3, Informative)

    by botmaster42 ( 6970014 ) on Tuesday April 05, 2022 @11:52AM (#62419628)
    Seems like it is 30 years late. Does not sound like it can still compete with a well rounded file manager like Total Commander.

  • That feature should have been added 20 years ago. Better late than never?

  • The entire "homepage" concept (for me at least) goes against the entire utility of File Explorer. To me, File Explorer is best in its most vanilla state-- a graphical interface to go down the branches on a tree of directories to reach a destination. I know where a file is and I know where I want to save a file. All of the suggestions (Windows "Documents", "Downloads", "Music", etc.), recently used locations, and the option to save to some sort of cloud service just get in the way and make it hard to do work.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ls671 ( 1122017 )

      Well to be honest, those folders have nothing "special" they are just regular folders like all the other ones.

      You have similar folders in other OS; .ssh .kde etc. and they have nothing special either, they are just named according to some naming convention but nothing stops you from renaming them and configure your software to use other names.

      • Well to be honest, those folders have nothing "special" they are just regular folders like all the other ones.

        Errr no they aren't. They aren't folders at all. They are a library collection of data which may be stored in one or multiple folders across your PC, with unique handling, and unique indexing. Just because you never looked at what makes them tick doesn't make them the same as normal folders.

    • The point of the special folders is that if you simply accept their paradigm, everything is simpler and just works. It's folks like you and me who won't give up micromanaging their ecosystem that run into complications.

      When i upgrade an IOS device, the applications are restored from the app store (even if they're no longer on the store), and the user data is restored from the backup. It just works in a way that it wouldn't if I were given the option of controlling where on the filesystem everything was loca

    • Quite unfortunately we are in the world of "it just is there" with much of the user base. Loosely, you can thank phones for that... where a file that is recently used (ex: a picture downloaded) is available to send as an attachment in just about any app on the phone. Instead of having to know where the file is, it is just in a "recent" type list where many files are linked to in order of time created or accessed or what have you. I would venture to say that most people don't want to learn the folder structu

    • just get in the way and make it hard to do work.

      It sounds like you want them to follow your organisational structure rather than accepting that they provide a different workflow and adapting to that workflow. The only people who have trouble with the "special folders" are those who think they are folders and treat them like folders. They aren't.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • I bet few of us are, but we all can see the future that will be forced upon us and we don't like it.
      Windows 12 at this point is just going to be Google Chrome with a different paint job. The really really really do not want you to run anything locally any longer.

    • Re:Curiosity... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Tuesday April 05, 2022 @12:59PM (#62419872)

      The one thing I find frustrating about Windows since 8 is the new GUI paint over the system that does not really work. For example, how they are trying to replace Control Panel with Settings. Don't misunderstand me; I am fine with MS wanting to change it; My frustration is that after 8 years, Settings still not close to replacing the functionality of Control Panel and I have to go to at least 2 places to make a change. It seems that MS has just made your settings changes more obtuse and difficult for little reason.

      In some cases Settings is deceptive when it comes to Services. While I am no expert in how Windows 7 worked, it seemed like a setting change was respected. Windows 8 and newer only superficially acknowledges your setting change in the GUI but the system may actually not respect it. For example, I have turned off Geolocation many times. It seems like I have to check with every single minor/major patch that it does not turn on the service again. I am pretty sure I disable the service every time too, but MS changes it back. However, Settings says Location is turned off even though the Geolocation service is running and keeps turning itself on.

      Another example is all the WiFi settings and services. My desktop has no WiFi. It is not a laptop. From the Settings menu it seems to acknowledge that I have no Network Adapters except my Ethernet. Yet if you dig in Services, Windows has turned on all services related to WiFI like Radio Management (Airplane Mode) that cannot be changed. Also my computer is a solo Windows machine at home. There are no other Windows machines. Yet every Windows Network service is turned on and hard to turn off so that communication with other Windows machines is easier despite my machine never joining an AD/SMB group ever.

    • the company i work for just picked up a new non-technical client for IT support. after visiting their site i discovered that every user is a local administrator, and that over half the machines had already been downgraded to Win 11. if i ever meet the IT consultant who preceded me at this site i will fuckin' shank him and stomp on his body as he bleeds out.

      idk if yall are aware but if you downgrade to 11, after ten days you lose the ability to easily upgrade back to 10. you'd have to nuke it and repave it.

    • I got a new desktop that came with Win11 loaded and it's mostly the same. If you're used to using the ribbon in File Explorer in Win10 then it is a step backwards there, and the context menu tries to helpfully be minimalistic which means an extra click to expand it for any of the common reasons I ever invoke the context menu. Window management is better, though, you can snap windows into zones via a pop up on the Maximize button. The Win10 settings/notifications pane is now split between the notification
    • I installed it on my personal desktop yesterday and instantly fell in love with WSL 2. So much so that I'd be installing it on my work computer right now if I didn't have work to do first. And this is despite not really liking the new GUI skinning, with the massive blanks spaces at the top of windows that used to be filled by menu ribbons.

      I spent an hour running nmap scans of my local network from ubuntu in the new windows terminal, just because I could. Nmap was one of the many network tools that did

  • Does anyone else have this problem on Windows?
    (Note: I had to add extra spaces to get past the Slashdot ascii art filter)

    1. Open Windows Explorer
    2. Go to J:\projects\project1\ subproject1\folder\ input\ data
    3. Run an application. Do some work.
    4. File - Save As... defaults to "C:\Users\MobyDisk\Documents" instead of the folder I have open. So I have to type J:\projects\project1\... again.
    5. Run another application. Do more work.
    6. File - Save As... is again back to "C:\Users\MobyDisk\Documents" or worse m

    • Yup, directory navigation is crap on Windows. Constantly switching folders like you mentioned is a PITA.

      If the bloody "Quick Access" would actually take ALL shortcuts to a directory it wouldn't be so bad but every so often you run into issues where you can't add a directory / shortcut. Re-organizing shortcuts is also a PITA where there is a TINY vertical height where you move a quick access item up or down.

      Another thing that makes Explorer crap is the broken sorting option. Even if you sort by name (by cl

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      MS malware does the same thing on MacOS. I also really enjoy how Word selects random fonts suggested for me to use when I'm forced to use that abominable pile of fetid dingos kidneys.

    • Sometimes I feel like that's on purpose to get you to save things to OneDrive. It can feel like an Android device where it tries to discourage you from using the on-device storage hierarchy.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

        OMG yes -- They basically replaced the save dialog with an advertisement for OneDrive. Let me save your sanity here: Go to File - Options - Save - check "Don't show the Backstage when opening or saving files with keyboard shortcuts" This makes it so that pressing ctrl+s brings up the usual Save dialog instead of the stupid screen that prompts you for which cloud service you want to use. I think the other way is to add a button to the "quick access toolbar" that shows in the title bar. I always add one f

        • Thanks for that tip, that saves a lot of pointless extra clicks! I'd known the Quick Access bar was a workaround for some things but keyboard short cuts are my preferred way to avoid Office trying to be too helpful already.

    • Ctrl+L is your friend. It won't fix the default path being randomly assigned on each window (and having no "current open folders" option in the file picker - why does no OS desktop environment have this?), but at least you can copy/paste full paths from one window to another to navigate quickly to wherever you want to put your files.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

        That's a good one. Another nice one is knowing that you can drag files into the command-prompt window and it "types" the full path for you.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kmoser ( 1469707 )
      Just today I sat down and finally followed these directions [alpharithms.com] to add "Recent Items" to File Explorer Open/Save dialogs. Why did it take me so long? Because inertia: I was just so used to changing folders manually and just dealing with it. Plus, these steps take more than 30 seconds of reading, and honestly this should be the default setting in Windows anyway.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

        Thank you! That isn't *exactly* what I want, but it is close enough to save me some time. I did the "Recent folders" and "Recent items" - not sure which one will be more useful.

  • Clean the fake hierachies (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dargaud ( 518470 ) <slashdot2@SLACKW ... net minus distro> on Tuesday April 05, 2022 @12:13PM (#62419706) Homepage
    Long ago you had C:. And everything under it.
    Then you My Computer, and C: under it.
    The you had My Desktop, and My computer under it, and C: under it. And a whole bunch of stuff like Settings, and Documents. And a whole bunch of useless shit like Movies, Music (it's a work computer, don't show my boss!) and 3D models or whatever.
    It's so atrocious that you have linked directories within linked directories all the way down like turtles.
    I want an option to remove all this garbage and just show C:. Let me find my way from there.

    • Re:Clean the fake hierachies (Score:5, Informative)

      by echo123 ( 1266692 ) on Tuesday April 05, 2022 @12:36PM (#62419798)
      It's so bad I learned how useful it is to type 'explorer.exe .' from within a WSL2 terminal to learn what Windows really thinks the path is. The equivalent of the pwd command in linux. Try it. It's Mickey Mouse, but it works and can be useful.

      Windows thinks:

      /home/user

      is really

      \\wsl.localhost\Ubuntu\home\user

      (for Ubuntu distros)
      • Thanks for the upvotes, which reminds me to add:

        From my experience using WSL2, do not use linux symlinks as a rule(!) when considering Windows OS. Instead, use the path as I've tried to document in the comment I am replying to (forgive me, I'm very fatigued and it is late here), and only use Windows Shortcuts, because the resources required otherwise are ridiculous.,
        • Didn't you notice that explorer has your linux machines down at the bottom of the left pane?
          • What does that have to do with the price of eggs? My comment was to point out how grossly inefficient linux symlinks are vs. Windows Shortcuts on a Windows OS Host when using WSL2.

    • Or user defined hierarchies. I don't work the way you want me to. So let me define my own way instead of cluttering my screen.

      Even the folders + files idea feels broken and old. We need to shift to relationships and labels on data blobs.

      Data can have more than one source/creator (both want that value to be set that way). Metadata matters. Who, what, when, how, where, why, etc... These might be useful later on, so hang on to it. And we have so much local space now that it's ludicrous we aren't even tr

  • Does this by chance integrate their web browser into the operating system? *sigh* History repeats itself.

  • Directory Opus... (Score:3)

    by Bourdain ( 683477 ) on Tuesday April 05, 2022 @12:20PM (#62419740)

    ...is the best $100 or so ever spent

    -great highly customizable interface
    -highly customizable shortcuts
    -great views
    -awesome wildcard search
    -sane favorite management
    -like total commander on steroids

  • Have Microsoft brought two decades of incompetence to an end?

  • Panes would be better than tabs (Score:3)

    by hazem ( 472289 ) on Tuesday April 05, 2022 @01:16PM (#62419932) Journal

    I use Linux at home and Windows at work. One thing I really wish Windows had was a file browser with panes. It's really nice to have two locations open in one window and be able to right-click, "copy/move to other pane".

    It seems like a natural for Windows to have panes.

  • Dear Microsoft, since you updated notepad you've broken moving the cursor and selecting text with the mouse in it. Since you updated the taskbar, you have broken dragging and dropping icons across different windows. Since you upgraded the start menu, you have broken the possibility of opening it without making a perfectly vertical movement. Since you upgraded the system tray, I have to wait three seconds for it to load.
    Please stop upgrading things until you've fixed the stuff that you've broken.

  • Explorer++ has had tabs forever:

              https://explorerplusplus.com/ [explorerplusplus.com]

    How is this exciting, Microsoft successfully (well, we'll have to see how the next week pans out) copied an existing competitor's tech. Yawn.

    Maybe fix the start button to be like windows 10 was!!! That would make me excited!

  • Nothing else matters until Windows and File Explorer can successfully mount network shares and keep them connected for more than a day. Rebooting the computer to reconnect to a network share is not a solution.

    Also needs to be fixed/redesigned: Distant network shares. When we can SFTP to a host that has network shares mounted locally to it and that is infinitely more stable and functional than remotely mounting the exact same network shares (all three systems on the same network - just one device is over

  • Hidding dot files is something *every* other OS file browser does. Even Opus on Windows does it.
    • That's a *nix convention, which is why linux and MacOS do it ("every" other OS). The windows convention is to use $ instead.

  • This is nice and all, but when am I going to be able to move my Windows 11 taskbar?

  • That's all well and good and all but, the question everyone want to know the answer to is...

    When do we get Clippy back?





    (yeah, yeah, I know Clippy was the Office assistant and Rover was the Windows Explorer assistant but, they both came from Bob and more people remember Clippy)

  • lipstick on a pig

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