Windows XP Explorer Challenge

[Dan Jensen]

I have been working with home movies and saving them off to a Western
Digital 80 GB and 200 GB USB 2.0 external hard drive. I used Windows XP Disk
Management to create a NTFS partition for both of these drives, since they
were originally FAT32. My computer has a 2.53 gigahertz Intel Pentium 4
processor and 512 MB of RAM.

Most files are .5 to 1 GB in size. I created a folder and tried to move
approximately 50 files into it on the same drive using Windows Explorer. I
kept getting an error that some of the files were being used by another
program, even though I did everything to confirm that they were not.

I have also tried other operations, such as selecting a large number of
files, right clicking and selecting properties. This results in Explorer
become very slow/performing with a delay and either the results don't come
back or they take a very long time. When they do not come back, then
everything is slow and, on Shutdown, I see number of processes having to be
ended (explorer.exe, TeaTimer.exe, gcasServ.exe., ccApp, NVIDIA Twin, etc.).

Is there limitation with Explorer operations via a USB 2.0 external drive
when dealing with large number of large files? If this is not a
limitation... thoughts on resolving what I am experiencing or how to move
large files into a folder and working with them? Other thoughts/help?

 

[Walter Clayton]

What are you using for Anti-Virus? You'll also want to disable/throttle
MSAS.
Background scanning processes can cause the issue you're seeing. They can
lock a file until real time scanning has completed.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I have been working with home movies and saving them off to a Western
Digital 80 GB and 200 GB USB 2.0 external hard drive. I used Windows
XP Disk Management to create a NTFS partition for both of these
drives, since they were originally FAT32. My computer has a 2.53
gigahertz Intel Pentium 4 processor and 512 MB of RAM.

Most files are .5 to 1 GB in size. I created a folder and tried to
move approximately 50 files into it on the same drive using Windows
Explorer. I kept getting an error that some of the files were being
used by another program, even though I did everything to confirm that
they were not.
I have also tried other operations, such as selecting a large number
of files, right clicking and selecting properties. This results in
Explorer become very slow/performing with a delay and either the
results don't come back or they take a very long time. When they do
not come back, then everything is slow and, on Shutdown, I see number
of processes having to be ended (explorer.exe, TeaTimer.exe,
gcasServ.exe., ccApp, NVIDIA Twin, etc.).
Is there limitation with Explorer operations via a USB 2.0 external
drive when dealing with large number of large files? If this is not a
limitation... thoughts on resolving what I am experiencing or how to
move large files into a folder and working with them? Other
thoughts/help?

Windows XP has a bad habit of accessing the EXTRA information, particularly
in AVI files.
If you wish to avoid this, you can try disabling this for AVI files and/or
you can reboot, don't access the drive with Windows Explorer but copy
everything with command line.

Try turning off the Thumbnail Caching.
1.. Click on "CONTROL PANEL" from the Start Menu.
2.. Click on "FOLDER OPTIONS" in the Control Panel.
3.. Click the view tab
4.. Finally - tick the "DO NOT CACHE THUMBNAILS" box and then click APPLY

Speed up AVI Access by removing this registry key:
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{87D62D94-71B3-4b9a-9489-5FE6850DC73E}]

Disable the Indexing Service (Set it to disabled in the services list.)

 

[Dan Jensen]

Unfortunately I am running Norton Internet Security 2005... since it has
already caused me pain, I disconnected from the internet and turned it
completely off. For once it was not the problem.

Could you tell me more about MSAS?

 

[Dan Jensen]

Great information...

Windows XP has a bad habit of accessing the EXTRA information,
particularly in AVI files.
If you wish to avoid this, you can try disabling this for AVI files and/or
you can reboot, don't access the drive with Windows Explorer but copy
everything with command line.

Try turning off the Thumbnail Caching.
1.. Click on "CONTROL PANEL" from the Start Menu.
2.. Click on "FOLDER OPTIONS" in the Control Panel.
3.. Click the view tab
4.. Finally - tick the "DO NOT CACHE THUMBNAILS" box and then click APPLY

I have tried this step and ran a number of test, but unfortunately did not
experience any noticable difference.

Speed up AVI Access by removing this registry key:
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{87D62D94-71B3-4b9a-9489-5FE6850DC73E}]

Could you tell me more about what this registry key is for?

Disable the Indexing Service (Set it to disabled in the services list.)

What is this for and where can I find it?

Thanks for all the help...

 

[Walter Clayton]

Could you tell me more about MSAS?
determined fromgcasServ.exe is part of Microsoft Antispyware (MSAS) unless you're running
the original Giant.

If running MSAS then be aware it *is* a beta product, it *does* have
problems and should *not* be installed in a production environment.

Regardless, a possibility is that MSAS/Giant is attempting to real time scan
the files and getting hung.

Also, if you're doing a move, make sure there are no other explorer windows
open with the directory contents.

 

[Claudio Drews]

This registry key is about the way windows manage the "preview" of avi
files. Because of it´s usual size, it causes the system to slowdown very
much.

Great information...

Windows XP has a bad habit of accessing the EXTRA information,
particularly in AVI files.
If you wish to avoid this, you can try disabling this for AVI files
and/or you can reboot, don't access the drive with Windows Explorer but
copy everything with command line.

Try turning off the Thumbnail Caching.
1.. Click on "CONTROL PANEL" from the Start Menu.
2.. Click on "FOLDER OPTIONS" in the Control Panel.
3.. Click the view tab
4.. Finally - tick the "DO NOT CACHE THUMBNAILS" box and then click
APPLY

I have tried this step and ran a number of test, but unfortunately did not
experience any noticable difference.

Speed up AVI Access by removing this registry key:
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{87D62D94-71B3-4b9a-9489-5FE6850DC73E}]

Could you tell me more about what this registry key is for?

Disable the Indexing Service (Set it to disabled in the services list.)

What is this for and where can I find it?

Thanks for all the help...