Restart Windows Explorer manually

When you often need to restart Windows Explorer, the "official" method can get quite cumbersome.  That's why we have developed ShellDispenser; a small utility that lets you restart Windows Explorer automatically with the press of a key, or even as an automated step in your build environment!

The most common way people shut down Explorer is by selecting the "Explorer.exe" task in task manager and ending it, but this way Explorer will not get the opportunity to close down properly.  This may result in changed settings not being being written to the registry etc.

To restart Explorer the proper way, you best go to the "Shut down" dialog by clicking the "Start" button in the task bar and selecting "Shutdown" (or "Turn Off Computer" if you're running Windows XP).  In this dialog, hold down the Control, Shift and Alt keys and click "Cancel".  Explorer will now shut down, leaving you with an empty desktop.

To restart Explorer again, open the task manager.  This can be done by holding down Control and Shift and then pressing Escape.  Another way is to hold down Control and Alt and then press Delete.  From task manager, select "File" from the main menu and select "New Task (Run...)".  Type "Explorer.exe" (without the quotes), and press Enter.  Explorer will now restart.