DIGIT-ARC read-only archive · snapshot: July 23, 2026

What's the best Windows Explorer alternative?

25 posts · originally from https://geek.digit.in/community/threads/whats-the-best-windows-explorer-alternative.184382/

Chetan1991
Chetan1991 Original post #1
Jun 4, 2014 at 5:14 PM
Occasionally Windows Explorer on my laptop starts to consume 25% processing power and the fan goes in overdrive, and system to heat up, for apparently no reason. What could be the reason of this?
What's the best alternative to explorer with great integration, features, stability and lightweighted-ness?
SaiyanGoku
Jun 4, 2014 at 5:38 PM
Use explorer++
gagan_kumar
Jun 4, 2014 at 6:02 PM
Occasionally Windows Explorer on my laptop starts to consume 25% processing power and the fan goes in overdrive, and system to heat up, for apparently no reason. What could be the reason of this?
What's the best alternative to explorer with great integration, features, stability and lightweighted-ness?
well to simply explore files i used to use winrar.........
A
Jun 4, 2014 at 6:12 PM
Is not Explorer one of the default process in Windows? You can try different explorer like explorer++ and all, but explorer will be still running right?

This can be issue with indexing, or you may have added some network drive that no longer exist, or try disabling autoplay to reduce the process usage.

Try to figure, what exacytly causes the process hogging.
gagan_kumar
Jun 4, 2014 at 6:14 PM
Is not Explorer one of the default process in Windows? You can try different explorer like explorer++ and all, but explorer will be still running right?

This can be issue with indexing, or you may have added some network drive that no longer exist, or try disabling autoplay to reduce the process usage.

Try to figure, what exacytly causes the process hogging.

well prvsly when i had to use some heavy applications or games i used to close explorer.exe from task manager and use the task manger's explorer to locate and run......
A
Jun 4, 2014 at 6:18 PM
well prvsly when i had to use some heavy applications or games i used to close explorer.exe from task manager and use the task manger's explorer to locate and run......

What? How you live without start menu taskbar, desktop icon? and how much memory you saved by doing this :-|
anirbandd
anirbandd #12
Jun 4, 2014 at 6:56 PM
[MENTION=149723]gta0gagan[/MENTION] : dosnt explorer.exe start back up automatically??
kaz
kaz #13
Jun 4, 2014 at 8:49 PM
Occasionally Windows Explorer on my laptop starts to consume 25% processing power and the fan goes in overdrive, and system to heat up, for apparently no reason. What could be the reason of this?

Check running processes. It happens sometimes due to corrupt files.
Nerevarine
Jun 4, 2014 at 9:11 PM
Scan system for viruses also, another possible reason
ratul
ratul #15
Jun 5, 2014 at 12:21 AM
i use DOpus, feature rich, great customization, nice interface, lightweight, best in my opinion.. :)
ariftwister
Jun 5, 2014 at 10:46 PM
In details view, Only file sizes are shown. The size of folder is not showing. Any ways to make to show?
dashing.sujay
Jun 5, 2014 at 11:07 PM
[MENTION=149723]gta0gagan[/MENTION] : dosnt explorer.exe start back up automatically??

Nope, once you kill the process, you have to start it manually.

In details view, Only file sizes are shown. The size of folder is not showing. Any ways to make to show?

Probably a registry hack can do that.
Flash
Flash #18
Jun 5, 2014 at 11:10 PM
In details view, Only file sizes are shown. The size of folder is not showing. Any ways to make to show?
Only 3rd party apps can do that; Microsoft has disabled the registry hack for showing the folder sizes from vista.
Folder Size for Windows
Anorion
Anorion #22
Jun 7, 2014 at 2:27 AM
Total Commander
Total Commander - home
link to image gallery with most important functions
here are some features
General features:

Both 32 bit and 64 bit versions available!
Direct access to Network Neighbourhood
Supports Drag & Drop with Explorer/the Desktop etc.
Command line for starting of programs with parameters, simply by typing the program name or by pressing CTRL+ENTER or CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER.
Configurable button bar and Start menu (User-defined commands) to place your frequently used DOS or Windows programs into a drop-down menu. The actual directory and/or the file under the cursor can be delivered to the application.
Configurable main menu.
Built in file viewer (Lister) to view files of ANY SIZE in hex, binary or text format, using either the ASCII- (DOS) or the ANSI- (Windows) character set. The line width and font size can now be changed. You can even view files inside archives! New: Support for Unicode UTF-8 format.
Bitmap viewer in Lister, additional formats through Irfanview (see addons).
HTML- and Unicode-Viewer in Lister.
Parallel port transfer function (direct cable connection), works between Win95/98/NT/2000/3.1 and DOS!
Thumnbails view shows preview images in file lists.
Custom columns view allow to show additional file details.
Multi-rename tool to rename many files with specific rules, or by editing the names in a text editor
Total Commander comes in the following languages: English, German, French, Italian, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch, Spanish, Czech, Russian, Polish, Hungarian, and now also Hebrew, Greek, Afrikaans, Catalan, Turkish and Ukrainian!
The help is available in English, German and French (separately).
File handling:

Extended copying, moving, renaming and deleting of entire trees (Enables deleting "full" directories).
Compare files by content, now with built-in text editor.
Synchronize directories (with subdirs), or a directory with a ZIP file.
Encode/Decode files in UUE, XXE and MIME format.
Split/Combine big files.
Search for duplicate files.
Show/select files with specific search pattern, size, date or contents.
Restore selection as it was before the last file operation (NUM /).
Enhanced search function with full text search in any files across multiple drives, even inside archives.
Multi-rename tool: Allows to rename multiple files in one step (Hotkey: Ctrl+M)
Overwrite dialog allows to show preview images and custom fields
Work with Windows Vista user rights model (user account protection)
FTP client:

Built-in FTP client supports most public FTP servers, and some mainframes
FTP and WWW proxies for FTP connections; new also SOCKS4+5.
FXP: Send files directly from one remote server to another.
Resume aborted downloads.
Add files to download list (through context menu) and download later.
Download in the background (separate thread).
Secure FTP over SSL/TLS, enter the URL as follows: ftps://ftp.servername.com .
Needs OpenSSL dlls from OpenSSL: The Open Source toolkit for SSL/TLS.
Archive handling:

Archives are handled like subdirectories. You can easily copy files to and from archives. The appropriate archiving program is automatically called. pkzip, arj, lha, rar, ace and uc2 are all supported.
Built-in ZIP-compatible packer, supports long filenames! This packer is based on ZLIB by Info-Zip.
Internal unpackers for ZIP, ARJ, LZH, TAR, GZ,CAB, RAR and ACE formats.
Additional packers can be added as plugins. See addons page.
Pack large archives in the background (separate thread).
Copy files directly from one archive to another.
anirbandd
anirbandd #23
Jun 7, 2014 at 4:55 PM
Total Commander
Total Commander - home
link to image gallery with most important functions
here are some features

this is great!! thanks! :)

- - - Updated - - -

btw, compatibility with Win8/7??
Anorion
Anorion #24
Jun 7, 2014 at 4:57 PM
^yes it is
anirbandd
anirbandd #25
Jun 7, 2014 at 6:36 PM
great! thanks! :)