If something went wrong in your Windows 10 laptop or PC, you may don’t need to restart your computer immediately. You can try restarting the Explorer.exe (generally known as Windows Explorer).
Certain “User Interface” or “Graphical Interface” issues related to Taskbar, Start menu, File Explorer, notifications or action center can be resolved by just restarting the Explorer.exe. It saves your time for restarting the PC.
There are 2 simple methods available to restart the Explorer.exe. The simplest among the two use Task Manager. The other method uses the Command Prompt.
Some people might not feel confident or feel shy to use Command prompt. They can go with Task Manager method.
How to restart Explorer.exe using Task Manager?
Open the Task Manager with “Run as administrator” [The keyboard shortcut for the Task manager is Ctrl + Shift + Esc]. Find the Processes tab at the top of the Task Manager. In the list of various processes, find the “Windows Explorer” and select it (just click to highlight it). Now, click restart at the bottom of the Task Manager. It will take a few seconds to restart the explorer.exe and that’s it.
How to restart Explorer.exe using CMD? (Command Prompt)
Open the Command Prompt (admin) or open it with “Run as Administrator”. Then, type the following command to kill the running Explorer.exe.
taskkill /f /im explorer.exe
Now, the taskbar and other graphical interface elements would disappear. Don’t get panic at this moment. They will all appear after restarting the Explorer.exe by typing the below command.
start explorer.exe
The above command will restart the Explorer.exe properly.
Restarting the Explorer.exe will only solve certain issues related to the graphical interface of some common programs like Start menu. If the issue for which you have restarted the Explorer.exe still persists, try restarting the PC.
That’s all for now. Please do share your views in the comment box below.