Vjekoslav built a Windows file explorer from scratch. 2.3MB executable. No VC runtime. He threw away the standard library and wrote his own.

Sure did! And to be more descriptive, I didn't rewrite it function by function. The reason I chose to write my own base layer is because the programming landscape has changed significantly since the C standard library was written. So instead of using malloc, I use memory arenas backed by VirtualAlloc, length-based strings instead of null-terminated ones, more math functions such as vectors and matices etc. I go into some detail in a BSC talk for those interested. But I probably just need to start writing some more formal material in the form of a blog or something.

He is @vkrajacic !

shell32.dll was only 800K, so that's a lot of code! Might be great, but tiny it's not. SHELL32  DLL    819,200  08-24-96 11:11a

The question is why isn’t Windows this fast natively?

Legacy code and compatibility with 20-30 years of plugins and ecosystems and other integrations

So does this mean Windows will continue to get slower over time? Why can’t we choose which integrations are allowed? I feel like File explorer was faster in Windows 10. It’s SLOW in Windows 11. Is this something Microsoft doesn’t consider a regression?

I believe they’re working actively on it right now to make it faster

We need more fast native apps, no more slow webview apps 👍

File Explorer was always among my top Windows gripes. MSFT has/had plenty of capable software engineers, but always put them on wild goose chases after some shiny new bell or whistle instead of making the core system better. I moved on to Linux Mint and never looked back.

Can he bring back the old search files options circa sometime in early 2000's too?! ask for a friend. The new search in explorer is better "said no one ever"

I just tried it. OMG it's so much better than native! I can't believe it! beta is here

While it's awesome that you're hosting @vkrajacic , it's absolutely unforgivable for a multi-billion dollar company to decide that performance and stability are not core values for the Windows operating system, because FilePilot is faster and more reliable than File Explorer.

Unemployed activities

Meanwhile at Microsoft: "It's impossible to put the task bar at the top of the screen -- it would break too many applications!"

Would be awesome if you could get Casey Muratori on the show. Or if we could get him and Mark Russinovich in a cage match 🤣

Everything by void tools.

@fkadev @kemal_ersin abiler denemeniz lâzım, bu hızlı değil bambaşka bişe olmuş alskdjf

I’m not defending Microsoft, but Explorer isn't just a file viewer - it's deeply integrated into the system, and browsing files is only a tiny part of what it does. So if you’re going to replace it, it should be with something genuinely powerful, like Total Commander

Does it support long file paths?

I hope @Apple hires him immediately to fix Finder!

wow - it is snappy. Hope it matures well, it's definitely going to be part of my installs on any Windows devices. BTW, it's available in "winget install Voidstar.FilePilot" as well via Pwsh/cmd Cli.

I'm trying really hard to find the win here and I'm coming up empty. Can anyone help me out? ⬆️

@vkrajacic Great job !

@Grok - is there a Linux version of Filepilot?

Dos 6.0 was 3 Disks...

Not a valid comparison. the world is different.

Bullshit my friend has still a win3.11 running because the Software Update would cost 20.000 euros So we bought old parts in case

@shanselman Win3.11?!?

@shanselman Paying 10.0000€ for a program update but not hardware for 4 clients

Another thing you can do is get Sumat PDF reader and not have to put of with all of Adobe's bloated, annoying crap!

Are you surprised of all this fatware present in windows programs?

Microsoft's implementation of the entire 'Visual C' family is nonsensical and infuriating. When I wanted to code in C on windows, I went to Cygwin, and eventually MinGW running through an MSYS2 shell before even considering msvc. (Cygwin is awful, btw, MinGW isn't).

Looks pretty cool but I only use a file explorer unless I absolutely can't do it from the command prompt 😆

Gonna try it but has been my standard for 22 years.

Lol. And it only costs the price of the ENTIRE WINDOWS 11 Operating system. Lame.

Somehow this sounds better than the actual File Explorer in Windows lol

I want a techno song that uses the "into into into windows" soundbite.

Truth is most standard library functions have a direct Win API call. May have different prototypes, but still. I once did a complete windows service for UPS that had a all dependencies, as that was the requirement.

Back to basics. Common utilities like file explorer start getting clunky and the community responds!

@Meltryth

I thought I saw a tweet from you somewhere but can't find it about when this interview/video will be up to watch instead of just audio?

ya I need to upload to my youtube

But it is not Agentic.