Open in New Process - Folder

aaaaaa · 23 Jul 2010

hey,

perhaps I should have added a little more detail. When I try this out, I always get one process for the desktop instance of explorer, and one process for the file manager window of explorer. If I launch two, three, or twenty file manager windows, I still only ever have two instances of explorer.exe running.

Am I misunderstanding what the purpose of "open in a new process" means? Or is something just really strange with my installation of Windows? I have a suspicion that the true answer to both of those is "no", and that this is just a bug in Win7. So if anyone could confirm that (by saying so, or taking a screenshot of 3+ explorer.exe processes), that would be great.

Brink · 23 Jul 2010

Is it like this even when you use OPTION ONE to open it in a new process?

aaaaaa · 23 Jul 2010

yes, I have tried both ways... restarted to make sure that the folder options setting took effect as well.

Dwarf · 23 Jul 2010

That is perfectly normal. When you have the option Launch folder windows in a separate process checked, it does not mean that each window that you have opened opens in a separate process (just to confuse things). What this actually does is separate the main explorer process (the one that provides the main Shell and the desktop) from your open folders.

Option enabled (checked):

Folders open in the same process as each other, but a separate instance to the process that provides the Shell.

Option disabled (unchecked, default):

Folders open in the same process as each other, in the same instance to the process that provides the Shell.

aaaaaa · 23 Jul 2010

Ahh, ok. That would make sense (even if it seems somewhat contradictory). Thanks for the info!

Dwarf · 23 Jul 2010

You're welcome. :)

I suppose it does sound confusing and contradictory. Perhaps the option would have been better called Launch folder windows in a separate process from the Shell, but that would probably be too long to fit in the dialogue box.