What causes File Explorer to sometimes utilize so much CPU? It seems to happen only after downloading large files; >10 GB of installation media is what did it today.
Even if there is nothing currently downloading it keeps using more and more CPU across all 10 cores. 
Hey Mike,
I have this problem when I have the “SW Last Saved With” column turned on in file explorer and I’m moving files into the directory with those turned on. The only way to make it lower the CPU usage after is to kill explorer.exe and restart it in Task Manager.
That seems to have fixed it. Thanks!
Definitely an unexpected culprit. 
I’ve had this same thing happen. I’ve also had weird things happen when I kill File Explorer via task manager, such as my desktop goes blank, and my task bar disappears. The only way I was able to get it back was to reboot.
That’s not weird, that’s normal. You desktop and task bar are part the explorer.exe process. Instead of killing it, just restart the process in Task Manager.
Thanks for the tip JSculley!
I’ll give this a try. I’ve had issues with file explorer hanging-up or crashing mysteriously while SW is open. I’m on SW2020 SP5.0 + Aton 6Client and SolidPDM.
Personally I haven’t used Explorer in years. After years of waiting in vain for a tabbed interface, I started using Xyplorer and I can’t go back. (That said, Explorer.exe is still in the background making minor mischief)
If you need to force quit Explorer or it crashes entirely with no task bar, there are two other ways (other than using the “Restart” option in Task Manager) to get it back:
Both of those will prevent you from having to reboot every time if you’re not able to use the Restart Process in the Task Manager.
