One of the most exciting and drastic changes that Microsoft made with Windows 11 was the introduction of the new, much more modern-looking File Explorer that replaces the classic file explore, which was introduced back in 2012 along with Windows 8.
Though modern, the new File Explorer is buggy and far from perfect. Additionally, it replaces the much useful command ribbon from the interface, which has not been greeted well by the Windows community,
Seeing this, to help Windows 11 users that would love to use the classic File explorer over the modern file explorer, we have come up with this step-by-step guide that details how you can re-enable the classic file explorer on your Window 11 PC.
- Navigate to Start, type Registry Editor and open the first search result that appears on the screen.
- Inside Registry editor, navigate to the following path:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Shell Extensions
- Now in case you cannot see the Blocked folder right-click on Shell Extensions and click New > Key
- Name the Key Blocked and then press Enter.
- Now right-click on the newly created key and then select New > String Value.
- Name the string value to be: {e2bf9676-5f8f-435c-97eb-11607a5bedf7}, then press Enter.
- Now go ahead and restart you PC.
Once completed, the next time you open File Explorer on your Windows 11 PC, you will be greeted with the classic Windows 10 file explorer, complete with its command ribbon and all the bells and whistles that made it very useful.
Alternatively, if you want to revert to using the modern file explorer, you can do so by deleting the Blocked Key we created earlier and restarting your PC.
