Perhaps even more interesting winfile.exe the original Windows 3 File Manager was even updated (including a few open source contributions) with a few modern conveniences. There's not a lot of reason for launching progman.exe in Windows 11, but you might be surprised what you can do with winfile.exe still to this day, when you want a break from File Explorer.
It's archived again now, but: https://github.com/microsoft/winfile
In Oldest GUI application that still runs on Windows 11microsoft
winfile
C2018–2026
microsoft / winfile · Archived
winfile
Original Windows File Manager (winfile) with enhancements
25Distinct people
28Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
7.1KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
Original Windows File Manager (winfile) with enhancements
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.
No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.
Also in these discussions
- microsoft/calculator · linked in 3 of the same discussions
Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 1:49:46 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year28 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2018-04-07 14:20:42 UTC to 2026-10-27 18:34:02 UTC.
* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 2 | 3 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 7 | 1 | 6 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 1 | 3 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 2026 (partial) | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
From the project README
An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.
Read the project’s introduction
Announcement: Repository to be archived on March 1, 2025
We realize this may come as a shock and disappointment to our contributors but we simply do not have the expertise or resources within the organization to continue to maintain this project.
While you may continue to work on your own private fork, remember that use of archived repositories are more risky from a security standpoint and caution should be taken.
Windows File Manager (WinFile)
The Windows File Manager lives again and runs as a native x86, x64 and arm64 desktop app
on all currently supported version of Windows, including Windows 11. I welcome your thoughts, comments and suggestions.
There are two primary versions of the source code in the master branch:
original_plus tag: refers to the source for WinFile as of Windows NT4 with minimal changes
so that it compiles with Visual Studio and runs on current Windows.
current master: actively developed branch that consists of enhancements and additions to WinFile.
I will consider bugs fixes and suggestions for minor changes to the master branch. Feel free to create a pull request or post issues as you see fit.
I will not be changing the original_plus sources nor creating other branches for other purposes.
You are welcome to do that on your own.
Download The App
If you are running Windows 10, you can download the app from the store
If you just want to download the WinFile application without worrying about compiling from the source code, we have a number of pre-compiled versions available.
Please select the version which you would like to download.
Chocolatey release
Winget release: winget install "Windows File Manager"
MSYS2 release
Latest Release on Github (v10.3.0.0)
To see more release binaries, including of older versions, see the releases page.
History
The Windows File manager was originally released with Windows 3.0 in the early 1990s. You
can read more about the history at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_File_Manager .
Change history
Highlights of changes in each release are in CHANGES.md.
What it looks like
Contributing
Contributor License Agreement
As mentioned above, this project welcomes contributions and suggestions. Most contributions require you to agree to a
Contributor License Agreement (CLA) declaring that you have the right to, and actually do, grant us
the rights to use your contribution. For details, visit https://cla.microsoft.com.
When you submit a pull request, a CLA-bot will automatically determine whether you need to provide
a CLA and decorate the PR appropriately (e.g., label, comment). Simply follow the instructions
provided by the bot. You will only need to do this once across all repos using our CLA.
This project has adopted the Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct.
For more information see the Code of Conduct FAQ or
contact opencode@microsoft.com with any additional questions or comments.
What Makes a Good Pull Request for WinFile?
If you are interested in contributing and/or suggesting changes to the actual application, you might find it helpful to read this post first.
License
Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Licensed under the MIT License.
Read the full README on GitHubWhat Hacker News says
28 sourcesI suppose you are right. I worked with MFC/C++ and COM and it was horrible. Delphi and C++ Builder things were nicer to use but fell by the wayside, particularly after Borland lost their focus and didn't bother supporting VCL correctly in themes and also had major issues with their C++ compiler. They suffered a brain drain.
I remember Windows Explorer opening swiftly back in the day (fileman even faster - https://github.com/microsoft/winfile now archived sadly) and today's Explorer experience drives me insane as to how slow it is. I have even disabled most linked-in menu items as the evaluation of these makes Explorer take even longer to load; I don't see why it can't be less than 1 second.
Anyway, I do recall Netscape taking a long time to load but then I did only have a 486 DX2 66MHz and 64MB of RAM.... The disk churning did take a long
Read the rest
time, now you remind me...
I think using wxWidgets on Windows and Mac was quite nice when I did that (with wxFormBuilder); C++ development on Windows using native toolkits is foreign to me today as it all looks a mess from Microsoft unless I have misunderstood.
In any case, I can't see why programs are so sluggish and slow these days. I don't understand why colossal JS toolkits are needed for websites and why the average website size has grown significantly. It's like people have forgotten how to write good speedy software.
Windows File Manager (WinFile) repository archived on March 1, 2025
64 points · Open discussionFile Manager: https://github.com/microsoft/winfile
Calculator (the horrible UWP one, unfortunately): https://github.com/microsoft/calculator
As for that FAT driver, it was traditional to include in the SDK/DDK sources of some of the actual drivers in Windows, so that one is not a surprise.
In Microsoft formally deprecates the Windows Control PanelMicrosoft released the NT 4 version of it under the MIT license: https://github.com/microsoft/winfile
In The history of Alt+number sequencesAsk and ye shall receive: https://github.com/Microsoft/winfile
File Manager, or winfile.exe, was the predecessor to Explorer's file management aspects. You can use it on Windows 10 and 11 (and all the others) if you want to.
Program Manager, or progman.exe, was the predecessor shell to Explorer. It was included with Windows through Windows XP SP1 before finally being stubbed in SP2 and removed altogether in Vista. You can probably grab the binary from XP SP1 and run it in newer Windows versions, though.
In Why does part of the Windows 98 Setup program look older than the rest? (2020)> Plenty of open source apps are abandoned. The maintainers get tired, too busy, or whatever.
Other people can pick up the baton. For example my window manager of choice is Window Maker which was abandoned for literally years (fortunately since the underlying tech doesn't change every other month, it still kept working) before someone else it picked it up and nowadays there are a few developers working on it.
> If it was open source, the odds are no one would care to take over maintenance (though they could) since it’s basically redundant at this point.
When Microsoft opensourced winfile[0] (the file manager from Win3.x/NT 3.x) some developers did flock to it (i personally even added a small feature to allow for multiple file masks which was merged), so i'm pretty sure the same would happen for an opensourced wordpad.
[0] https://github.c
Read the rest
I am glad someone noticed. :-) It is the File Manager icon. I have always liked this icon and the aesthetic of graphics made for Windows 3.x, even though my first Windows was 95 OSR2. Since File Manager and the icon are now free (https://github.com/microsoft/winfile), there is no copyright reason not to use it verbatim.
If you liked it, you may enjoy my page https://dbohdan.com/gui-games.
In Clean mount lists in LinuxInteresting answers in the article with some nuance and history but for most people it was when Windows 95 came out - DOS and Windows 3.1’s winfile[1] utility referred to them as directories. When Windows 95 came out it became folders.
[1]https://github.com/microsoft/winfile
In When was the term ‘directory’ replaced by ‘folder’?Microsoft open sourced the original:
https://github.com/Microsoft/winfile/
Edit: Also available on the microsoft store
https://www.microsoft.com/store/apps/9p7vbbbc49rb?ocid=badge
In Windows10Debloater: Script to remove Windows 10 bloatware (2021)The funniest thing is that they tried to "provide welcome relief from the awkwardness of File Manager"... which Microsoft open-sourced a few years ago for those who still want it with win10/11[1], to much acclaim from its many fans[2]
[1] https://github.com/Microsoft/winfile
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16790099
In A Windows 95-like shell for Windows 3.1xMicrosoft DOS https://github.com/Microsoft/MS-DOS
Microsoft WinFile https://github.com/Microsoft/winfile
Outside of Microsoft created Windows 2003 32bit:
- https://reactos.org
- https://github.com/wekan/wekan/wiki/ReactOS
In Microsoft's Growing Control of LinuxWindows File Manager (WinFile)
7 points · Open discussionHow far back do you want to go? Windows 3.0 file manager is now open source and readily available from Microsoft directly![1] I’ve personally found it a joy to use even on a modern OS like 10.
[1] https://github.com/microsoft/winfile
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