Windows XP/Vista: Use a Batch File for Quickly Restarting explorer.exe
Contributed by Rob Rogers 
Tagged: Batch file programming Explorer.exe is the user shell on your Windows system (taskbar, desktop, etc.) and periodically it requires a restart to resume proper functionality. Additionally, if you do a lot of tweaking to your system registry like I do, it’s much easier to restart explorer.exe to reload the registry instead of restarting the entire system. By creating a .bat file, you will have a quick 2 step solution that will restart explorer.exe and get you back to computing in just a few seconds.
1. Open Notepad.
2. Copy and paste the following into the new document:@echo off
taskkill /f /IM explorer.exe
explorer.exe
3. Save your document with a descriptive name such as restart_explorer.bat. Make sure to save the file with the .bat extension and not .txt.
The next time you need to restart explorer.exe, simply run the newly created .bat file and close the command window that appears.
You may also like -
XP: How To Hide All System Tray Icons
Hack and Change the Text in your Start button on Windows
Windows 7 / Vista: Add a Website to the Desktop Right-Click Menu
IE8/IE9: Place the Menu Bar Above the Address Bar
Vista: Shortcuts to Shutdown and Restart Explorer
Vista: Add the Recycle Bin to the Start Menu
Windows: Desktop Fails to Load at Startup
IE8: Increase the Maximum Connections Limit to Download More Than Six Files at One Time
FloJo said on December 11, 2008
Or Task Manager > Applications > New Task > explorer.exe
Anonymous said on September 21, 2009
Ran batch file and it now opens the “Windows Explorer” instead of restarting “Explorer” (desktop). It used to restart Explorer as described in your post. I checked the batch file and it is exactly the same as copied from you post. Any suggestions?
Eight8rooney4ever said on August 8, 2010
The “Taskkill” command is not Recognize in Windows XP
that’s the problem
and it skips this step and run explorer.exe
that’s why it open “Windows Explorer”
noworkie said on March 11, 2011
doesn’t work in win7. as stated above it brings up windows explorer (i.e. “my documents”) and leaves the explorer.exe desktop closed.
manually typing explorer.exe in a cmd prompt brings it back up, but explorer.exe in a batch file doesn’t work. any solutions?