Why does XP take so long to display a long list of files - HELP!!!

[Neil G. Whitman]

We have a four user peer to peer network connected using
a switch. Three machines are running Windows 98 and mine
has XP Professional. One of the machines is used to store
a large number of resumes (over 10000) in Word format with
shared access for all users. From any machine other than
the XP machine when the folder is selected to open, the
list of files is displayed almost instantaneously. When
accessing the folder from the XP machine it takes up to
thirty seconds to display the contents of the folder.
While the machine is trying to display the folder
contents a moving flashlight pops up.

Why is it taking so long to display the folder file list
contents from just the XP machine? How can I resolve this
issue?

Thanks for your help
Neil Whitman
(e-mail address removed)
843-375-0031

 

[GMF]

And I thought I was the only one having this problem. My old 500mhz
Celeron system running Windows 2000 would dispaly the contents of a
folder in a snap. My new Dell 2.4 ghz Celeron running Windows XP
takes forever and it's a pain in the a$$.

What is wrong with this picture? Shouldn't XP have improved
performance, especially with something as mundane (and routine) as
displaying the contents of a folder?

 

[Guest]

Possibly because you have a number of ZP files in the directory. If so, this
is the buildin Zip support provided with XP.

Andrew

 

[Mark]

And I thought I was the only one having this problem.

Nah, XP's handling of directories with large numbers of files really,
really sucks. My guess is that it's doing something stupid like
looking up the file properties on every single file whenever it lists
them, so it can figure out what icon to display, or something equally
retarded.

This, IMHO, is XP's second-biggest performance issue after the lousy
disk caching code. The general user interface on my 3GHz PC under XP
feels significantly slower than the old 550MHz PC with Win98.

What is wrong with this picture? Shouldn't XP have improved
performance, especially with something as mundane (and routine) as
displaying the contents of a folder?

How would they convince us to buy 4GHz CPUs with 32GB of RAM if they
improved performance in new operating system releases ?

Mark

 

[Charles C. Drew]

Try the following...

==================================================

Stop Win XP from Searching Within ZIP Files

By Neil J. Rubenking

May 18, 2004

Lyle O'Leary

The only way to disable searching in ZIP files is to turn off Win XP's
support for treating ZIP files as folders. This is easy to do-and to undo.

From the Start menu's Run dialog, enter this command: regsvr32 /u
zipfldr.dll. Repeat and enter regsvr32 /u cabview.dll. Each time, you should
get a notice that DllUnregister succeeded. Contrary to numerous Web sites
displaying this advice, you need to restart the computer for the change to
take effect.

Now, when you search, the operating system will ignore ZIP folders instead
of treating them as folders. If you don't care about that feature, you can
leave it turned off. But turning it back on is as simple as repeating the
two regsvr32 commands without the /u.

| > And I thought I was the only one having this problem.
|
| Nah, XP's handling of directories with large numbers of files really,
| really sucks. My guess is that it's doing something stupid like
| looking up the file properties on every single file whenever it lists
| them, so it can figure out what icon to display, or something equally
| retarded.
|
| This, IMHO, is XP's second-biggest performance issue after the lousy
| disk caching code. The general user interface on my 3GHz PC under XP
| feels significantly slower than the old 550MHz PC with Win98.
|
| > What is wrong with this picture? Shouldn't XP have improved
| > performance, especially with something as mundane (and routine) as
| > displaying the contents of a folder?
|
| How would they convince us to buy 4GHz CPUs with 32GB of RAM if they
| improved performance in new operating system releases ?
|
| Mark

 

[Terje Trane]

Nah, XP's handling of directories with large numbers of files really,
really sucks. My guess is that it's doing something stupid like
looking up the file properties on every single file whenever it lists
them, so it can figure out what icon to display, or something equally
retarded.

Yes. To test, put a bunch of files of various types on a floppy, listen to
the diskette activity and see the icons pop up one by one...

 

[tonyk]

Yes. To test, put a bunch of files of various types on a floppy,
listen to the diskette activity and see the icons pop up one by one...

Sounds like an AV program is looking at each file, I've had this with the
avg6 shield.

tonyk

 

[cquirke (MVP Win9x)]

We have a four user peer to peer network connected using
a switch. Three machines are running Windows 98 and mine
has XP Professional. One of the machines is used to store
a large number of resumes (over 10000) in Word format with
shared access for all users. From any machine other than
the XP machine when the folder is selected to open, the
list of files is displayed almost instantaneously. When
accessing the folder from the XP machine it takes up to
thirty seconds to display the contents of the folder.

Smells like the extra overhead of pulling metadata from file content.
Try a simpler folder view in XP, i.e. one that doesn't show things
like "summary info", who wrote what, etc.

The extra overhead could also be coming from an av that scans file
content when files are listed in the folder window... or indeed,
malware that does the same thing while trying to infect them!

--------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - -

The memes will inherit the Earth

 

[WG]

Have a look:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;DE;328890