Slow Windows Explorer

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Hi

Well this is my first msg and just wanted to know this thing that keeps getting my nerves on… and on… and on .
I don’t know why in certain Win98 boxes (I don’t know if it happens with other win boxes, but it does happen in win98 for sure) whenever I open windows Explorer and click on any folder on the left pane so as to have it show the folders and files on the right pane, it will take a while (sometimes ranging from 4-7 secs) to “load” the files and folders on the right pane. So much for the problem. Now some considerations:
– This happens mainly with my 20 Gb C: disk. Sometimes I get the problem solved by clicking on the folders on the left pane to make it “load” the stuff on the right pane (and it tends to load faster). I scan and defrag both units periodically. Maybe it has to do with partitioning, but I don’t have a clue on how to partition disks and the pros/cons of it.
– That said, however, when I use Windows Commander (a third party program very much like Win Explorer) everithing is “loaded” right away with no delay. Same happens when “saving as” from any program such as word, excel, etc: double-clicking on a folder opens it at once and every elemen in it shows immediatly… and I believe these programs use an engine very similar (if not the same) to Win Explorer’s…

Summing up, whether it has to do with a registry entry, with partitioning, with formatting (hope not ), please, if someone can lend me a hand I’ll greatly appreciate it. Windows Commander’s interface is uglier and I just want things to work right… know what I mean?

Sorry for taking so much space, next time I’ll do better

HELP

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One thing I can tell you about this is that having a CD present in the drive forces Explorer to spin up the drive before displaying the contents of your system. The rest of the “slow” performance is a combination of factiors – the speed of the processor, the number of files on the disk itself, and the design of Windows Explorer itself. Try checking out PowerDesk – many people have thrown away the Explorer interface in favor of PowerDesk’s features and useability.

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Hey Mark, thanks. I knew that having a CD placed in the drive slows things down, do I never leave one spinning if I don’t really need to.

> The rest of the “slow” performance is a combination of factiors – the speed of the processor, the number of files on the disk itself, and the design of Windows Explorer itself

I really believe it might be the design of Windows Explorer, since as I said before, Win Commander “loads” things just fine, and is working with the same processor, # of files, etc. I will check out Power Desk and I’ll let you know how it does.

Thanks again
Diegol

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I came across this thread which may be worth checking out in full.

I’m afraid I didn’t have time to examine it in depth, but some excerpts that caught my eye:

—————–
Folder is slow to open in Windows Explorer due to folder size.
Cause:
When you open a folder in Windows Explorer on a drive using the FAT32 file system, this problem can occur if the total space used by all directory entries in the folder exceeds 32KB.

Solution:
If this problem occurs when opening a folder in Windows Explorer on a drive using the FAT32 file system, move some of the files from their current location to another folder.
——————————

I have found the true solution to this problem. It’s caused by cramming too much into My Documents. Copy (don’t move) all your files from My Documents to a new folder and use them from there. If you do not use My Documents you will find performance increases beyond belief.

——————————

and another link here

…but it appears My Documents is appearing as favourite culprit.

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Leif, thanks a lot! Can’t wait to get hands to my home PC.

Just One question:

> Copy (don’t move) all your files from My Documents to a new folder and use them from there

Why shouldnt I move the files? If i just coppy them, My Documents would be as crammed as before copying them, even though I use the files from a different location.
Finally, you say “If you do not use My Documents you will find performance increases beyond belief.”. The slowdown is due to too many documents being stored in My Documents (ie, explorer looks in this directory whenever you tell it to show a specific folder) or due to actually checking files stored in My Documents (ie, you check files in that directory and from that point on exploring becomes a pain)?

Thanks again. The articles are very useful.
Diegol

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Re: Copy not Move
I wondered about that myself and it doesn’t make real sense – I’d just move them.

Re: Finally you say “If you do not use My Documents …..”
That was another quote I copied, so not my words!

Good luck, and please report back regardless of the outcome.

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Leif, I believe that the “Copy don’t move” reference is for safety sake. If you have a problem during the data move process the “Copy” command won’t expose you to any possible data loss or corruption. After successfully copying all the data from the My Documents folder to another location I would first backup and then delete the contents of the My Documents folder. After that I would either change the default location that Windows saves to from My Documents to my newly created folder or manually save each new document or file. At least that’s my take on this solution.

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Sounds a pretty reasonable explanation to me!

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If you follow the thread on the-it-mercenary.com page from Jerry Doctor & scroll down to Sean’s reply he states..
“I read the posts and found that moving the My Documents to a folder called Documents did solve my problem with slow Folder opening.
HOWEVER, I also found that if I point the My Documents shortcut on Windows Desktop to the new folder called Documents the same problem occurs after opening the Documents folder but My Documents folder now works fine.
Remember that this short cut on the Desktop is not a normal .lnk file, it’s one of Microsofts magic short cuts like the Internet Explorer icon on the Desktop.
You’ll also notice that when changing where this short cut points to e.g. ‘Documents’ the title bar still displays My Documents. And finaly using Windows Explorer you’ll notice in the tree view that the new folder you created and pointed the desktop short cut to has the icon showing a Folder with Papers in it, instead of just a plain folder.
Allthough I have not tried it yet, I intend to point this Desktop short cut to a folder that I will never use and delete the short cut on the desktop.”

Sounds like an MS Bug to me.

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Hey guys, sorry for the taking so much time. I just hadnt had the time to try this at home. And now I have to say…

AMAZING. I first tried to point the My Documents shortcut on the desktop to an empty C:xxx folder, but things just seemed to be the same. Just as your quote says, once i had pointed it to the new directory, whenever i double clicked on it, the directory showed up but the title bar displayed “C:My Documents”. Maybe it would take a while until windows took the new changes, I dunno; i just got fed up with this and most of the files and folders in My Documents to a new “C:My Docs” folder (I didn’t remove the .psts in My Documents cause… well, felt lazy and didn’t want to redirect outlook to the new folder). I also created a link in My Documents to My Docs so everytime i wanna save a file and windows prompts me to save it to the default My Documents folder I can easily go to MY default folder.
I’m digressing. The outcome was GREAT. A click on a folder on the left pane showed its contents right away, with no delay, flash. end of it. Just what I needed. Thank you so much guys!!!

As for PowerDesk, I tried it at work and is very fast indeed. It also has many useful features that Win Explorer lacks, but I’m suspecting it’s ad-supported (not causa the banner in the bottom, but when i start I explorer, always something shows up). Anyway, the launch bar is really useful, as so is its newly crafted search interface, the zipped files support, the customisable toolbars (dunno about other OSs, but in win 98 you cant customise your win explorer toolbars). The DriveBar is a great feature too (you can switch drives by just clicking on its button on the bar, great when you have many drives with their folders showing). All this said, im more friendly with win explorer and still prefer it, so thanks again. Didn’t want to go third-party this time

See ya around
Diegol

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