Disappearing File Explorer windows when I open and close laptop lid

Recently got given a new Dell Latitude 5440 Laptop with a Windows 11 Business Ver 23H2 build 22631.3593 at work and I've noticed
that File Explorer keeps disappearing from my Task bar occasionally when I close and reopen my lid.

The current settings on my "When I close the lid" is sleep for both "On Battery" and "Plugged in".

This isn't always consistent either, there are times when I open my laptop lid and find the File Explorer still there,
and times where they vanish. Additionally, they disappear without any crash prompt so its hard to even know when they disappear until
I need to open up my File Explorer window which I then realise are missing. Just to note, all File Explorer window disappears.

File Explorer never disappears whilst i'm using the computer.

Please let me know where I can start looking to find either crash reports or maybe there is someway for me to monitor a process
to log when File Explorer disappears with a timestamp?

Would appreciate any support on this rather confusing situation.

Probably the default Windows Explorer icon that is created when Windows is installed. Unpin the icon from the Taskbar and create your own
- anywhere over an open area of the Desktop, right click
- New > Shortcut > Browse
- navigate to the explorer.exe file in C:/Windows > OK
- to the command line entry, add /n,/e to look like this C:\Windows\explorer.exe /n,/e,
- if you want Explorer to open at your user folders, add that path as well, to look like this C:\Windows\explorer.exe /n,/e,"C:\Users\(name)"
- drag it over the Taskbar to create a shortcut

Since this is a work laptop, do you have an IT dept? If so, you would be a standard user and not be able to install any apps or make any changes without their Administrator account. They could fix it for you. They may have a Group policy not wanting you to access File Exporer.

idgat said:

Probably the default Windows Explorer icon that is created when Windows is installed. Unpin the icon from the Taskbar and create your own
- anywhere over an open area of the Desktop, right click
- New > Shortcut > Browse
- navigate to the explorer.exe file in C:/Windows > OK
- to the command line entry, add /n,/e to look like this C:\Windows\explorer.exe /n,/e,
- if you want Explorer to open at your user folders, add that path as well, to look like this C:\Windows\explorer.exe /n,/e,"C:\Users\(name)"
- drag it over the Taskbar to create a shortcut

Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestion, I will look to try this out this week.

Spunk said:

Since this is a work laptop, do you have an IT dept? If so, you would be a standard user and not be able to install any apps or make any changes without their Administrator account. They could fix it for you. They may have a Group policy not wanting you to access File Exporer.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately we dont have an IT Technician available, the only other options is literally sending the entire laptop back to Dell which isn't ideal.