explorer.exe

Starting explorer

The (file-)explorer can be started with the keyboard shortcut windows+e.

It can also be started by pressing windows+x which opens the the Power User Menu, then pressing t.

Restarting explorer.exe

Sometimes, explorer.exe needs to be restarted, for example after changing the registry to show hidden files and file extensions.

This can be achieved in cmd.exe or PowerShell with

taskkill /im explorer.exe /f
explorer.exe

taskkill kills the explorer process while the simple entering of explorer.exe starts the process again.

Quick access

Quick access, on the left pane, upper section, lists

Frequent folders
Pinned items

Adding (pinning) a folder to Quick access from the command line

With PowerShell, a folder can be added to quick access using the COM Object shell.application:

$sh = new-object -com shell.application
$sh.namespace('c:\users\rene').self.invokeVerb('pinToHome')

Adding the current ($pwd) directory:

$sh.namespace($pwd.ToString()).self.invokeVerb('pinToHome')

A folder can later be removed like so

($sh.namespace('shell:::{679F85CB-0220-4080-B29B-5540CC05AAB6}').items() | where-object { $_.path -eq 'C:\users\rene\xyz' }).invokeVerb("unpinfromhome")

Opening Quick access from the command line

In cmd.exe with the start :::shell{GUID} command:

start shell:::{679F85CB-0220-4080-B29B-5540CC05AAB6}

In PowerShell, quotes are required:

PS C:\> start 'shell:::{679F85CB-0220-4080-B29B-5540CC05AAB6}'

It can also be opened directly using the explorer executable, for example in PowerShell:

explorer.exe 'shell:::{679F85CB-0220-4080-B29B-5540CC05AAB6}'

With win+R, quick access can be opened by just pasting shell:::{679F85CB-0220-4080-B29B-5540CC05AAB6} into the box.

Physical location of Quick Access entries

The entries that are displayed in Quick Access are physically stored in the file f01b4d95cf55d32a.automaticDestinations-ms which is found under %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations.

Pinned entries seem to be stored under %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\CustomDestinations.

Removing Quick Access

As per Matthias Kittsteiner, it is possible to remove Quick Access from the explorer by setting the value of attributes under the registry key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{679f85cb-0220-4080-b29b-5540cc05aab6}\ShellFolder to 0xa0600000. (On 64-Bit Windows, this change is also(?) required under the respective Wow6432 node).

Misc

Compare with the directory %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch.

Arguments and options

explorer.exe can be started on the command line and be given as argument the directory that the explorer will then show:

c:\> explorer C:\Users\Rene\AppData

It's also possible to set open the File Explorer in the current directory:

c:\> explorer .

/select

With /select,…, explorer highlights the specified file:

C:\> explorer /select,C:\Users\Rene\Documents\fruits.pdf
C:\Users\Rene\Documents\> explorer /select,fruits.pdf

/e,::{CLSID}

The /e option of explorer.exe can be used to open a view of a virtual junction point's root folder:

%SystemRoot%\Explorer.exe /e,::{CLSID}

Additionally, the name of an object to be viewed can be appended to the command:

%SystemRoot%\Explorer.exe /e,::{CLSID},objectName

TODO: is (and if: how) starting explorer with /e,::{CLSID} related to starting explorer like so:

explorer.exe shell:::{679F85CB-0220-4080-B29B-5540CC05AAB6}