WinENFET

Never a good sight:

Get rid of File Explorer clutter in Windows 11, use this simple utility to quickly open a new tab instead of a new window in File Explorer, when you press Win + E.

Win + E before:

Win + E after:

If no File Explorer window is open, it will create a new one in the normal way.

Note: The Tabs feature for File Explorer is only available in Windows 11 22H2 Stable Build (22621) or later.

How to use

1. Download WinENFET from the Releases page.
2. Run the application.
   Its (white H in a green background) icon will show up in the system tray to indicate that it's running.
   From then on, Win + E will open a new File Explorer tab.

Run WinENFET on startup

You'll likely want to configure the app to run anytime you log in. If you don't know to do this, please follow the steps in Method 2 of this tutorial.

Run WinENFET as priviledged Scheduled Task at User logon

You can run following commands inside a priviledged Powershell window. The Scheduled Task will start WinENFET at logon of the current User with admin priviledges, but without the annoying UAC promt

$Path = 'C:\path\to\WinENFET-v1.0.0.exe'

$actions = (New-ScheduledTaskAction -Execute $Path)
$trigger = New-ScheduledTaskTrigger -AtLogon -User ($env:USERDOMAIN + "\" + $env:USERNAME)
$principal = New-ScheduledTaskPrincipal -UserId ($env:USERDOMAIN + "\" + $env:USERNAME) -RunLevel Highest
$settings = New-ScheduledTaskSettingsSet
$task = New-ScheduledTask -Action $actions -Principal $principal -Trigger $trigger -Settings $settings
Register-ScheduledTask 'Run WinENFET AutoHotkey' -InputObject $task

Limitations

It doesn't work when you press Win + E on a virtual desktop when another virtual desktop has an open File Explorer window.

Help bring this feature to Windows

Please visit the Feedback Hub page at the link below to upvote a suggestion for a built-in option to always open File Explorer in a new tab. More upvotes make it more likely for the Windows team to act positively on the feedback and add the feature in the future.

Link:

feedback-hub:?contextid=395&feedbackid=68798915-6714-493d-8420-d641f01df988&form=1&src=1

Copy and paste it into your browser. It will take you straight to the suggestion page in Feedback Hub if you have the app installed.