Autohotkey - Restart Explorer Shortcut (Useful when crash)

Question

Is there a way to restart all instances of Windows Explorer? It's useful when explorer starts acting up, eg. high cpu .

Explorer never "acts up" regarding CPU. Your computer may be infected. — harrymc, Sep 19 '20 at 08:24
Does this answer your question? [How can I remove malicious spyware, malware, adware, viruses, trojans or rootkits from my PC?](https://superuser.com/questions/100360/how-can-i-remove-malicious-spyware-malware-adware-viruses-trojans-or-rootkit) — harrymc, Sep 19 '20 at 08:24
thanks for the suggestion. it's more my antivirus hogging resources. — tinker, Sep 21 '20 at 03:50
Which antivirus? And what does Explorer have to do with the antivirus? — harrymc, Sep 21 '20 at 05:40

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 19 '20 at 04:36

; Ctrl F9 - restarts all windows explorer.
^F9::
    Runwait TASKKILL /F /IM explorer.exe
    Run explorer.exe
return

Runwait will wait for the command to complete before going to the next line. This is required, else Run explorer.exe might run too soon, and get killed as well.

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 19 '20 at 06:09

I have designed a better one using powershell:

$open_folders = @()
$shell = New-Object -ComObject Shell.Application
$shell.Windows() | Foreach {
  $open_folders += $_.LocationURL
}
taskkill /f /fi "status eq not responding" >$null
Stop-Process -Name explorer -Force
explorer.exe
$open_folders | foreach {
  Invoke-Item $_
}

It will open the folders which were open before restarting of explorer and kill not responding processes before explorer restart.

cool, come useful for those who want to preserve the windows. — tinker, Sep 21 '20 at 03:47

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 19 '20 at 13:38

; Get a list of all opened explorer windows:
If WinExist("ahk_class CabinetWClass") ; explorer
{
    list := ""
    ; https://autohotkey.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=28751#p28751
    for window in ComObjCreate("Shell.Application").Windows
    {
       explorer_path := ""
       try explorer_path := window.Document.Folder.Self.Path 
       list .= explorer_path ? explorer_path "`n" : "" 
    }
    list := trim(list, "`n")
}
; MsgBox, %list%

RunWait, %comspec% /c taskkill /f /im explorer.exe ,,hide

Process, WaitClose, explorer.exe

; We can now restart the Explorer.exe Process:
Run, explorer.exe
 
; open all explorer windows we had open previously:
If (list != "")
{
    Process, wait, explorer.exe
    Loop, parse, list, `n
        Run %A_LoopField% 
}

cool, come useful for those who want to preserve the windows. — tinker, Sep 21 '20 at 03:48
the script is erroring out at last 3 lines, putting double quotes on the "n" fixes it. >>> Loop, parse, list, "`n" — tinker, Sep 03 '21 at 07:53

Autohotkey - Restart Explorer Shortcut (Useful when crash)

3 Answers3