You're NOT imagining things—Microsoft actually changed how file copying works!
The "Brilliant Feature" of Parallel Copying: Gone
In older versions of Windows (especially Windows 7 and before), when you started two or more file copy operations in Explorer, they'd often happen
at the same time. This meant Windows would copy both sets in parallel, which was great if you wanted the quickest jobs to finish first, or just liked seeing multiple dialogs do their thing.
Why Does Windows Pause the First Copy Now?
Starting with Windows 8, Microsoft "streamlined" (read: crippled) the file copying UI. When you launch a second file copy job, both jobs now appear in a single unified dialog, and by default, Windows 10/11 tries to queue them—
not run them simultaneously. You'll see the active copy, and new ones often queue up, causing the first to pause. This happens because:
- Resource Contention: Copying multiple large files in parallel to the same drive can cause disk thrashing and, on slow drives (like HDDs), make everything even slower.
- User Interface Simplicity: A single dialog with a global "pause/resume" button is meant to reduce confusion, but in practice makes power users lose control over which jobs are active.
Why This is Annoying
You lose the "race" effect—where the smaller job can finish and be out of the way quickly! Instead, everything just waits for previous jobs (or the system tries to juggle, but without transparency).
Can You Force Simultaneous Copying Again?
- Workaround #1: Use Third-Party Tools
- Tools like TeraCopy let you copy files with greater control—including running several copies in true parallel, if you want. TeraCopy will queue or run jobs concurrently as you wish, has better error handling, logging, and generally is what Explorer should have been for years .
- Workaround #2: Multiple Explorer Windows
- Sometimes, starting copy operations from separate Explorer windows (not tabs!) can encourage parallel copying, but newer Windows versions often override this anyway.
- Workaround #3: Command Line
- Using
robocopy or xcopy in separate terminals will let you copy things in parallel, but you don't get a GUI progress bar.
In Short
It's not just you. Microsoft decided to protect "the average user" (who panics about drive lights and multiple dialogs), but in the process frustrated anyone who actually
thinks about throughput. If you want the fastest jobs to finish first: Use TeraCopy or a similar utility and tell Windows to take off the kid gloves.
If you want details about these tools or want a script to parallelize file copies—let me know. I live for restoring power to the user!
