Why did the Explore option disappear from the context menu of folders in the second column of the Start menu?

Raymond Chen

A customer noticed that when you right-click on Computer in the second column of the Start menu on Windows Vista, the first two options are Open and Explore. On the other hand, in Windows 7, the Explore option is gone, leaving just Open. The customer also noticed that in Windows Vista, the two commands had the same effect and wondered if Explore was removed because it was redundant. The response from the product team was a very simple “Yes.”

It’s interesting when a customer notices a relatively insignificant UI change, figures out the likely reason for the change, and then asks for confirmation. It’s not like the reason for the change affects anything. My guess is that the customer already paid for a support contract so they’re just going to use it, even when the issue wouldn’t normally be worth raising a support incident over.

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