Microsoft released a few days ago one of the most anticipated features of the Windows 11, in its 22H2 update: tabs in File Explorer. This function, as is found in browsers and applications that incorporate them, allows us to open several tabs with different locations in File Explorer and thus not have to deal with multiple windows.
The option is enabled by default once we update Windows 11 with the latest feature pack, although some may not yet have it, since the update progressively lands on everyone. Be that as it may, the truth is that not everyone is happy with the tabs in Explorer as it still lacks certain options. If you find yourself in this situation and you don’t particularly like this new feature, we’ll show you how to turn it off in this article.

How to disable tabs in File Explorer in Windows 11

At this time, Microsoft does not have a specific option to disable File Explorer tabs. However, it is possible to do this through a third party tool like ViveTool. With the help of this tool we can activate or deactivate hidden and experimental features in the operating system through a series of commands in the CMD.

Before proceeding, this is a good time to warn you that turning experimental features on or off in Windows may lead to unexpected system behavior. That is why, before touching anything, it would be advisable to have a backup of your most important files.

To download ViveTool, we will have to visit its official page on GitHub and install the latest version available. Next, we extract the compressed file and run CMD (Command Prompt) as administrator. After that, we will have to navigate to the location of the extracted folder using the CD command. For example, if we have saved the files to C:Vive, we access the location through ‘CD C:Vive’. The steps would be the following:

In CMD:

CD ‘location of ViveTool folder’

vivetool /disable /id:37634385

vivetool /disable /id:36354489

Once we have entered the commands, we restart the system, and the tabs should be gone from File Explorer. In case you regret it, you can re-enable them by repeating the same steps but using ‘/enable’ instead of ‘/disable’ on the command line and restart again.

As we’ve mentioned, Microsoft hasn’t yet added a native option to disable tabs in File Explorer, though it may come in the future.

Via | neowin