Windows 11 Explorer Issues Are Seriously Making Power Users Consider Linux

Hello Microsoft,

I would genuinely like to understand how a company with Microsoft’s engineering resources managed to break one of the most fundamental components of an operating system — File Explorer — and ship it as an “improvement”.

This is not a low-end machine, and please do not default to the usual “unstable hardware” explanation. The system is running an i9-13900K with 80 GB of RAM and is fully stable under heavy workloads, stress tests, and professional applications. Yet File Explorer freezes while deleting files smaller than this message itself. Copy operations hang. Deletions hang. Sometimes simply opening a folder introduces visible delays. When basic file operations fail on proven high-end and stable hardware, this is not a performance limitation — it is a software design and quality problem.

Additionally, a long-standing and extremely basic workflow has been broken: clicking the middle mouse button (mouse wheel click / MButton 3), which for years opened folders in new Explorer windows, no longer works. A behavior relied upon for decades has simply disappeared without explanation or replacement.

In exchange, users received tabbed Explorer — a feature that appears to have been implemented at the cost of responsiveness, stability, and predictable behavior. The new Explorer feels like an experimental UI layer forced onto users rather than a mature, production-ready system component.

It increasingly feels as if Windows is no longer engineered as a reliable working environment but instead assembled from layered UI experiments placed on top of legacy code, resulting in a slower and less stable experience with every update.

The most frustrating part is the lack of choice. Users are not allowed to keep a stable workflow. Updates impose major behavioral changes with no official option to retain the classic, fast Explorer experience.

Therefore, this is a direct request:

***Please provide an official Windows 11 build option without the tabbed File Explorer — a version using the classic, fast, and stable Explorer implementation without the modern WinUI-based interface layer.***

An operating system should not struggle with basic file operations on high-end hardware. Stability and performance must take priority over visual redesign experiments.

Windows used to be valued for reliability and backward compatibility. Right now, updates feel less like improvements and more like forced participation in ongoing UI experimentation.

Users need a dependable tool — not an evolving interface experiment.