"Calculating time remaining" stupidity

[Nick Payne]

Is it possible to stop Vista wasting time on this stupidity every time I use
Explorer to copy anything. For example, I just copied a 4.3Gb DVD ISO
between two drives. It took Vista about 20 seconds to tell me that the copy
was going to take 15 minutes: it actually took about 6 minutes for the copy
to complete. And if I copy a large directory structure, it wastes even more
time giving me a completely inaccurate time estimate.

Nick

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Is it possible to stop Vista wasting time on this stupidity every time I use
Explorer to copy anything. For example, I just copied a 4.3Gb DVD ISO
between two drives. It took Vista about 20 seconds to tell me that the copy
was going to take 15 minutes: it actually took about 6 minutes for the copy
to complete. And if I copy a large directory structure, it wastes even more
time giving me a completely inaccurate time estimate.

Although it's true that the estimates are often wildly inaccurate, it
really doesn't waste any time preparing them. The reason for the delay
is just that it's waiting until it has what it thinks is enough data.
During that waiting period the computer's resources are available for
other uses.

 

[Julian]

Ken's probably right, but...

a) a decent estimator should have some convergence criteria and not
confuse/waste the user's attention until the estimate has settled down - and
if as Ken suggests it already does, it needs to better... I thought some
recent update was supposed to have improved things (I suppose the estimates
are not quite as idiotic as they were...)
b) it does waste time when it calculates "time remaining" following Cancel
in response to a file delete confirmation dialog! Just go away you stupid
dialog!!!Minor, but oh so annoying!

Julian

 

[spanky628]

This same thing happened to me. I called tech support. He said this was a
virus that caused this problem because if you reboot in safe-mode and try to
move-delete-add a file it doesn't do it. So I would recommend trying to get
rid of the virus (name unknown) or as I did completely re-install Vista.
Mine works good as new and fast now. Good luck!

 

[Sick of Vista's obvious problems]

I might believe this if it didn't take a minimum of 30 seconds to do any file
move or copy operation regardless of the number of files or file size. The
same Microsoft designers who think making users put up with a 30 second pop
up window to delete a 4K file is a good idea are the guys who also promised
special features for Vista Ultimate purchasers.

Vista looks and feels like a bug riddled beta release pushed out the door on
life support. I spend every moment of my IT life advising people to avoid it
like the plague.