Windows 10 November 2019 Update brings new File Explorer Frozen and Unresponsive issue

Microsoft has started to roll out the Windows 10 November 2019 Update to Windows 10 users, currently “seekers” ie. those who specifically check for updates.

The update is meant to be minor and therefore trouble-free, but it appears Microsoft has not managed to avoid any issues.

One of the few new features in the November 2019 Update is changes to search in Windows 10, which is now separate from Cortana. This means the Search box in the File Explorer is now more powerful, including showing you previews of files you are searching for as you type.

It appears this feature is causing some problems, as some users report that File Explorer appears to become locked, frozen and unresponsive, and has to be force closed and restarted to work again.

On Microsoft Answers one user notes:

“Actually sometimes search box is getting totally stuck. In windows explorer (folders of window explorer process), it’s not clickable at all, neither right click nor left click works, until you force restart windows explorer. That fixes it for a while, until it gets stuck again.”

Another notes:

I was having the same problem when I was using the update (KB4517245), when I clicked in the search box, I had to wait for a abnormally large amount of time before the search box unfreeze and the cursor appeared, the right click never worked for me, not even a single time when I was using the 1909 build 18363.476… However, after uninstalling that update (if you can call it that) and start using again the 1903 build 18362.476 everything is fine again.

Also, with this new update the user needs to press enter or click in the arrow to start the search, this is a new futile and extra work for no reason, before this update the search was automatic, and started as soon as the user stopped writing.

I want to update windows to the latest version but foremost I need a working and functional Windows.

Others also corroborate the issue, which has also been replicated by WindowsLatest.

While Microsoft has not acknowledged the issue yet, it does seem like exactly the kind of problem a more resource-intensive search UI would cause.

Users also report that right-click has been disabled in the Search box, making it difficult to paste a search term there.

Have any of our readers run into the file explorer frozen issue? Let us know below.

Screenshot: WindowsLatest