Editing File Explorer (section)

==Overview==
Windows Explorer was first included with [[Windows 95]] as a replacement for [[File Manager (Windows)|File Manager]], which came with all versions of [[Windows 3.x]] operating systems. Explorer could be accessed by double-clicking the new My Computer desktop icon or launched from the new [[Start Menu]] that replaced the earlier [[Program Manager]]. There is also a shortcut key combination: {{keypress|[[Windows key]]|E}}. Successive versions of Windows (and in some cases, [[Internet Explorer]]) introduced new features and capabilities, removed other features, and generally progressed from being a simple file system navigation tool into a task-based file management system.

While "Windows Explorer" or "File Explorer" is a term most commonly used to describe the file management aspect of the operating system, the Explorer {{em|process}} also houses the operating system's search functionality and File Type associations (based on [[filename extension]]s), and is responsible for displaying the [[Desktop environment|desktop]] [[Icon (computing)|icons]], the [[Start Menu]], the [[Taskbar]], and the [[Control Panel (Windows)|Control Panel]]. Collectively, these features are known as the [[Windows shell]].

File Explorer is the default user interface for accessing and managing the file systems, but it ''is'' possible to perform such tasks on Windows without File Explorer. For example, the {{menu breadcrumb|File|Run}} menu option in [[Task Manager (Windows)|Task Manager]] on [[Windows NT]] or later functions independently of File Explorer, as do commands run within a [[Command-line interface#Command prompt|command prompt]] window.

After a user logs in, the explorer process is created by the userinit process. Userinit performs some initialization of the user environment (such as running the login script and applying group policies) and then looks in the registry at the Shell value and creates a process to run the system-defined shell – by default, Explorer.exe. Then Userinit exits. This is why Explorer.exe is shown by various process explorers with no parent – its parent has exited.