Windows 11's File Explorer will soon unzip files faster

[zohaibahd]

In brief: If you frequently deal with zipped files, File Explorer should soon perform notably better during extraction. Developers have optimized the feature in the latest Windows 11 Preview Build. It's the next step in Microsoft's ongoing effort to improve archived files.

Microsoft tweaked the performance of File Explorer when extracting zip files in the latest Windows 11 Insiders Preview. The update should boost speed, especially when unzipping a large archive of small files. The change arrives in Windows 11 Build 27818, released to Insiders on the Canary Channel on Wednesday. Microsoft mentioned it without fanfare in the "Fixes" section of the build's changelog.

"Did some more work to improve the performance of extracting zipped files in File Explorer, particularly where you're unzipping a large number of small files," the log reads.

Some metrics regarding the performance boost would have been nice, but we'll have to take Redmond at its word. Let us know in the comments if you've tried this particular build, regularly work with large zip files full of tiny items, and have noticed speed improvements.

The zip extraction upgrade builds on a few archive handling improvements Microsoft began rolling out last year. A previous update added native support in File Explorer for opening and viewing new compressed file formats, including RAR, 7z, TAR, and other niche archive types. However, it still relies on external utilities for actually extracting those files. A second File Explorer-related update fixed an issue where the Home section would not load correctly, showing random floating text that read "Name."

In addition to the zip extraction optimization, Build 27818 removes a feature from File Explorer. After installing this update, users will no longer see "suggested actions" pop up when copying things like phone numbers or future dates to the clipboard. Suggested actions provided options to quickly create a calendar event from a copied date or launch a dialer app for a phone number. That dialer app was typically Skype, but Microsoft will permanently shutter the popular communications app on May 5 to push users to Teams instead.

Microsoft posted a complete set of change details on its Insider blog for those interested in seeing what else may be coming to an upcoming stable release.

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Windows 11's File Explorer will soon unzip files faster

 

[NumberNine]

File Explorer is an ad platform now, yes?

I don't really do ads.

 

[Axeia]

So... Multithreading?
Last time I tried to unzip a large zip file it was faster to download and install 7zip to unzip it then it was waiting for explorer to do it (I kept it running during).

It would be a welcome improvement but why do such relatively small improvements take so long? Microsoft has got hordes of developers, it's unzipping has been a bad experience for decades.

 

[KingKappa]

Meanwhile opening a folder with varied content on 24H2 takes a few seconds than before the update. They also haven't fixed the taskbar never combine feature, if the text changes of the window, they automatically resize on the taskbar instead of keeping a fixed size. So every app has a different size on the taskbar.

So I've been using Explorer Patcher ever since it became available.

It will probably not get fixed before W12 comes out..

 

[axiomatic13]

Windows ZIP is wholly inferior to all other compression tools. Since they're good at stifling innovation by buying companies, just buy up 7-Zip and be done with it. (Apologies to 7-Zip.)

 

[Axeia]

Windows ZIP is wholly inferior to all other compression tools. Since they're good at stifling innovation by buying companies, just buy up 7-Zip and be done with it. (Apologies to 7-Zip.)

They don't even need to. 7zip is lgpl licensed for the most part, they can copy almost the whole thing.

 

[Jarenien]

7zip or go home imo.

 

[human7]

It would be a welcome improvement but why do such relatively small improvements take so long? Microsoft has got hordes of developers, it's unzipping has been a bad experience for decades.

My thoughts exactly, on so many things.

 

[scoffer]

See....what we do is -first we send your zip file to our cloud servers (don't worrry -you're in good hands -trust us) -coz everyone knows how good our servers are....then we send it back to you fully-unzipped. After we've taken a copy for our records.

 

[ibnMuhammad]

See....what we do is -first we send your zip file to our cloud servers (don't worrry -you're in good hands -trust us) -coz everyone knows how good our servers are....then we send it back to you fully-unzipped. After we've taken a copy for our records.

They really don't need to.

It's funny how many people upload their pictures and private documents to various cloud services, such as pdf to doc converters, or converting pictures to another format.

So many services, including gov/education/health, run on Google/Microsoft/Amazon cloud services, they probably already know everything to ever know about us.

Google of course goes far more aggressive with data collection, they want to know our major locations, who we live with, our homes/offices, when we browse the web and what we like to read and look at, what we purchase and when, etc.

This is why it's so important to break up Google's Chrome and Android business.

Unlike Apple for example, Google's entire business and income is driven by selling our data - we are the product.

 

[Xelions]

I like the fantasy of 7rar (joint colab of 7zip and winrar) integrated with 3rd party encryption.