(Image: Daniel Petri) Method 2: Use the hidden Explorer exit option in the regular Windows shutdown dialogġ. Now right-click on an empty area of the Start menu to access “Exit Explorer.”īringing up the hidden ‘Exit Explorer’ option in Windows 7. In Windows 7, press and hold both CTRL and SHIFT keys on the keyboard. This brings out a hidden context menu item called “Exit Explorer.”īringing up the hidden ‘Exit Explorer’ option in Windows 8. Now right-click on an empty area of the Taskbar. On Windows 8, press and hold both CTRL and SHIFT keys on the keyboard. Method 1: Use the hidden Exit Explorer optionġ. All these tricks also work for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2012. See the bottom of article on how to do this. Note: No matter what method you choose - except for the third option - you will need to restart Explorer after closing it. There are several documented ways to exit the Explorer shell. So let’s just kill Explorer and restart it.

3 Ways to Restart the Windows Explorer ShellĪlthough logging off will usually do the trick, sometimes you have too many open windows, tabs, apps or whatever, and logging off only makes things more complicated.

The same goes for developers that write extensions to Explorer who want to be able to test them. This might be because it may get locked up or maybe you made a registry change that requires a restart. Having said that, there may be times when you want to restart Windows Explorer.

In virtually all Microsoft operating systems, Windows Explorer is the shell in which the graphical user session operates and is responsible for bringing you the desktop, which includes the icons, shortcuts, the explorer interface and all the relevant GUI-based things that you need to use in Windows.

Closed windows explorer in task manager