files accessed slow through my computer and not shortcuts 2

[OrangeBattery]

Very strange problem here, appologies if I'm missing the obvious. I wrote yesterday about this problem but have found something extra out.

I was having a delay when opening some folders on my hard drive, it would take about 4 seconds to open some, a few even took about 15 seconds to open, when i first clicked the folder icon as part of the doubleclcick the folder would not highlight, after the second click it would look as if I had not clciked the folder at all then suddeny 15 seconds later it would open, during this time I could use everything

Anyway, I defragemted, turned services off, indexing off etc, nothing helped. Today I found that if I send a shortcut to the folder on the desktop that takes 15 seconds to open when I go to it via "my computer" it only takes 1 seconds to open, whats going on? I have a cable internet connection, could that be doing anything?

 

[bcastner]

Your cable internet connection has nothing to do with the issue.

Your experience is perfectly normal, and in fact for people who repeatedly use folders on network shared volumes this is often the best way to speedup browsing of the networked folders.

By creating the shortcut XP can do all the busy work required to allow the browsing of a folder ahead of time and cache it.

If the folders have a great deal of content with .avi, .jpg, .tif, .png or other video media content you can reduce the overhead required to open the folder by selecting Detail as the view instead of thumbnails. Often the program associated with viewing the files is itself slow to open and prepare for a possible view operation. Photoshop as the default viewer, if assigned, is a large program to have to prepare to open. You might consider using a different default viewer for these files associations. You can set this in Windows Explorer through the Tools, Folder Options facility.

If the issue is compressed files and you are using another program such as Winzip or Winrar or whatever to open .zip files, you might consider un-registering the native XP facility to avoid the overhead of XP preparing two different programs in anticipation of a view request.

 

[bcastner]

I forgot to tell you how to unregister the native zip service if this is an issue:

Start, run, regsvr32 /u %windir\system32\zipfldr.dll


Also, this MS KB note applies to your problem. It is discussing the context (right-click menu), but it applies for your folder slowness as well:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;819101_pg2.htm

Finally, a common "tweak" is to remove the default search for scheduled tasks:

Open the registry editor.

Go to

HKLM/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion
/Explorer/RemoteComputer/NameSpace

Export this key (in order to back it up) and then delete the key called

{D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF} (Task Scheduler).

Close the registry.

 

[OrangeBattery]

Thanks for taking the time to give such a detailed description to your answer, it really has helped a lot

 

[bcastner]

Hope it helped, at leat to explain the issue.

There will be service pack fixes to this issue and the context menu issues that are related.

Just like me you have to wait. MS is aware of the problem. Hope the workarounds suggested above provide some relief.

Best,
Bill Castner

 

[linney]

819101 - Temporary Decline in Performance Occurs When You Right-Click a File or Folder in Windows Explorer

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;819101&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

http://betas.intercom.net/modules.p...=article&sid=2665&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

Have you got all your updates for Windows?

http://securecomputing.stanford.edu/alerts/windows-shell.html

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=...+files%22%2Bwindows%2Bxp%2Bproblem%2Bexplorer

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=...+files%22%2Bwindows%2Bxp%2Bproblem%2Bexplorer

A suggested workaround: Go to Start/Run/Regedit and navigate to
the key below and delete the default data (right pane).

For AVI's

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\.avishellex\PropertyHandler

For MP3's

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\.mp3\shellex\PropertyHandler

Note: Make a backup of each key before editing.


Have a look around these links.

Select a file - windows stops.
Thread779-422825

 

[bcastner]

My eventual hopes for this issue, both from local browse or network, or the slowness of the right-click context menu, is that linney has bugged Microsoft enough that there will be a patch for this.

The problem is that Windows Explorer is asked to do too much. What is needed is an Explorer version stripped of anything but the equivalent of a View, Detail and without any significant data about the files properties. And no preview or double-click view. But on the menu you could click "Explore - Extended" and if it was slow, well... It is slow in the view.

linney has done yeoman work in staying on top of this issue as XP has matured, and I just want to take the opportunity to say thanks.

But there is no killer fix or tweak for this.

 

[linney]

The problem with XP is that is so damn stable (mostly!) that unlike other 9x systems, which were probably formatted and re-installed regularly, it keeps going on and on gathering minor faults that might not arise if it was formatted/re-installed as often as its predecessors.

 

[bcastner]

Hmmmmm.
I thought that was its virtue.

My own guess is that it is a cache issue. I am not sure how one writes the caching to handle everyone. Perhaps more granularity as a user option for the various caches.

You go guy.
I too have bugged MS that there is an issue here.

Bill

 

[OrangeBattery]

I think I will start to bug them aswell now

 

[OrangeBattery]

I have been doing little tests and stuff to try and work out what is happening, still no closer Im afraid. I have no media files in the folders which are taking so long to open, its just a couple of program installers like winamp and zone alarm and Im keeping them there until I write another cdr. The partition in question is 9gb in size and formatted with ntfs, it was yesterday 7gb full but today I have got it down to being 1gb by writting a lot of stuff to cd and deleting some things. The files I am left with could be accessed at normal speed 2 weeks ago and yet now to open the folder that contains them takes 15 seconds, during this time everything else on my pc runs fine and the only slow down is on the actual opening, while im waiting for it to open I can run other programs with no problem.

The partition is on my seconds hard drive, a maxtor 40gb 7200rpm which is 9 months old, the partition is in the final 9gb of the drive but as I said earlier was working fine 2 weeks ago. I thought I might be having a problem with something installed so I created a dual boot and installed another clean version of windows xp on a second partition, with no other programs running the new installation still took 15 seconds to open the file so maybe its something hardware related, but why so suddenly ans why does it not occur if a shortcut the the problem folders are put on the desktop

 

[bcastner]

One thing that seems to help, and I have not done any measurements to prove that it helps, is to increase the default customization limit for folders.

From the remarkable Kelly Theriot:

Windows remembers 400 folders. When that number is reached things start to go wrong. You can up this to 1000 by a
dding this to the registry. All tested and working. Things will last a little longer.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell]
"BagMRU Size"=dword:000003e8

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam]
"BagMRU Size"=dword:000003e8

If you prefer not to deal with the registry, you can use the edit from here:

Increase Folder View Options Limit: (Line 2)

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

Save Settings on Exit (Line 54)

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

 

[OrangeBattery]

Problem solved with that registry edit, thankyou so much, I would never have thought of that in a million years, my pc is back working the way I wanted, you have saved me going through a whole load of other things, I was even planning on going back to windows 98 to see if it was a hard drive problem.

Thanks again

 

[bcastner]

I am glad it helped.

As I said earlier, I cannot prove this helps, but it seems like it helps to me.

Best wishes,
Bill Castner

 

[bcastner]

BTW,

My guesss as to why this helps is that when you reach the folder customization limit XP has to process the MRU (Most Recently Used) overhead as well as the normal processing overhead of opening a folder.

By increasing the limit XP does not have to do the MRU processing.

A guess.

 

[trgz]

Just begun to experience the above problem (browsing My Computer in XP Home). In my ignorance I actually tried reducing the number of folders remembered to 100! (btw I think I did this using the newest TweakUI) - I'll be going home tonight to set it higher as suggested.
However I remember having a similar condition in Win 98SE - was it the same problem perhaps? I'm interested as I still run a Win98SE machine.
many thanks

 

[linney]

trgz,

Windows 98SE is becoming a distant memory, so it is hard to remember its peculiarities. You could try searching the 98 forum and see what that turns up.

Most of the problems mentioned above are applicable to XP only. If adjusting the amount of folder customizations remembered by XP fails to fix your problem do try some of the other mentioned ideas.

See how you go and post back if you have problems.

 

[trgz]

No success. I also tried raising this value further to 12000 as I counted 9800 folders (155,000 files - ok I play a few games...) but again no joy (incidentally the latest TweakUI does effect the same change in the registry). I even took it to 99999!.
I tried the removal of the zip service (which wasn't running anyway); I tried the display properties suggestion; the propertyhandler tweak; checking that I have all the latest packs/patches for windows; Kelly's wia.reg looked appropriate but didn't help - all with a suitable reboot in between. I forgot to mention that I also turned off the virus guard.
PC spec 512MB, AMD 3200+, 180GB 7200rpm Maxtor with 8 Meg cache.
So to recap - I double-click on My Computer and then I get
"Searching for items..." in the status bar for about 22 seconds (about 70% of the time it takes to count the no of folders) - any thoughts?

 

[linney]

Have a look in your Event Viewer for any Warnings or Errors.
Check your Services (at the time of fault if you can) for any that are reported as "Starting" but not actually "Started". Also check Processes in the Task Manager to see if you have any high CPU readings.

Was "Kelly's" reg fix referring to this article?

819017 - Long Delay Before Files Appear in My Computer in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;819017&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

 

[littlerumper]

I've tried all the fixes on this page with no-go. I just did a reload of XP Pro w/SP1, and when I click on a network share on another computer (xp as well), it takes like 5 minutes before the contents are listed....The reg tweeks sounded like that would fix it, but it didn't. The contents of the folder/share was rather large, but the other PC accesses the other one without any delay - regardless of folder contents...

Anyother ideas I could check?