Disable Rendering of Windows Explorer Icons?

[philaphan80]

Does anyone know of a way to disable the rendering of custom icons
within Windows Explorer?

I'm talking about the step that occurs *after* Windows Explorer builds
its list of files and places those little generic placeholder icons
resembling documents with a Windows flag.

I'm currently working within folders that contain literally thousands
upon thousands of documents. Our network is fast enough to build the
list almost instantaneously, but the custom icon rendering takes over
and freezes the Explorer window until the entire page's icons are
displayed. For example, the generic Windows flag document icons are
replaced with Internet Explorer icons when HTML files are displayed in
the list. (Scroll, wait... page down, wait... etc.)

I understand that a possible solution may involve the registry and a
system-wide change, therefore, making it non-ideal. But in this
instance, I'd prefer to depend on file extensions if the handoff is a
faster scrolling list.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Kelly]

Have you tried increasing the icon cache?

Added info:

To clear and reset icon cache:

Right click the Desktop/Properties/Appearance/Advanced. Use the item
drop box and choose Icon. Change the pixel number by one. Ok your way
out.

Increase Icon Cache (Line 121)
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

Correct/Repair the Icon View (Line 4)
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

Tip:

Add Icon Cache Size to Folder Options/View (Line 166)
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

--

All the Best,
Kelly (MS-MVP/DTS&XP)

Taskbar Repair Tool Plus!
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/taskbarplus!.htm

 

[philaphan80]

Hi, Kelly. Thanks for your reply.

I tried increasing the icon cache -- even beyond the high limit set by
the batch file -- with no luck. It seems to have worked on the medium-
sized (read: still large) folders, but the super huge ones still load
sloooooowly.

I guess I was hoping someone would pop on and offer something along
the lines of..... "go into the registry, HKEY_something_or_other, and
change key InsertNameHere's value from 1 to 0". I kinda assumed
Microsoft would have a way to do this quickly and easily to either (a)
disable loading of custom file type icons or (b) disable drawing of
icons altogether (i.e. list file names only).

I'm still very eager to find a solution to this problem! So if anyone
else has any ideas, I'm all ears.

On a side note, keep up the good work on your site! I've linked to it
through various search engines over the years while troubleshooting
and it's always been informative and helpful. I'm honored to have a
Net celebrity field my question.

 

[dobey]

What kind of files are they?
With pictures and movies, XP will list things like dimensions and running
time by default. This slows down the file listings quite noticeably.

 

[philaphan80]

They're HTML files (with an .html extension).

Just after I posted my last reply, your idea hit me as well. (Good
idea!) Even though I'm currently testing in "List" view (no details),
it makes sense that the system might still pull information behind the
scenes to pre-populate certain fields. So at this point, I guess I
can rule out the icons as the issue. Apparently, whatever is slowing
the system down is happening *before* the icons are drawn. (Sorry for
the confusion, Kelly!)

As a shot in the dark, I also tried unchecking the "Display file size
information in folder tips" and "Show pop-up description for folder
and desktop items" checkboxes within the Folder Options. No dice.
The list still comes to a halt while scrolling.

I guess the next logical question is..... is there a way to disable
loading of extra attributes (even in List view)? In other words,
simply load *only* the file names and nothing else. -- OR -- Does
anyone know of any third-party software that mimics Windows Explorer
99% with the exception of loading the extra file information?
(Perhaps an option that can be enabled or disabled at will.)

 

[philaphan80]

Okay, how's this for confusing........

I just ran some tests on my home machine (also XP, much more cpu & ram
than work machine) and I was able to reproduce the problem by creating
13,000 files within a folder and browsing to it. The List view
scrolled a tad bit quicker (I suspect due to faster machine) but still
crawled.

A co-worker mentioned that this started when they upgraded from Win
2000 to XP. So I fired up my Win 2000 Virtual PC image and -- lo and
behold -- it worked just fine. It was faster even though it was
communicating through my router! (By default, Virtual PC uses a
network connection to send and receive information from the host
machine.)

So the issue is apparently specific to XP users. I'm assuming a logic
change was made to explorer.exe between 2000 and XP. (Can anyone with
a final release version of Vista chime in with their results?)

Anyway, I started playing around before shutting down for the night
and I found something interesting. Apparently, the problem only
exists within the List and Details views, because switching to the
Tiles or Icons views fixed the issue completely! I was able to scroll
lickety-split through 13,000 files the same way I could in Win 2000.
(For those keeping score... yes, I made sure to reload Explorer and
page down once or twice to make sure the problem resurfaced before
switching views.)

This most likely confirms dobey's hunch that the problem lies in
background population, not the icon drawing. Unfortunately, I
couldn't seem to find any documentation on this during my exhaustive
search.

Does this new input, perhaps, give anyone any new leads?

In the meantime, I'm going to bed. lol

 

[Smirnoff]

They're HTML files (with an .html extension).

Just after I posted my last reply, your idea hit me as well. (Good
idea!) Even though I'm currently testing in "List" view (no details),
it makes sense that the system might still pull information behind the
scenes to pre-populate certain fields. So at this point, I guess I
can rule out the icons as the issue. Apparently, whatever is slowing
the system down is happening *before* the icons are drawn. (Sorry for
the confusion, Kelly!)

As a shot in the dark, I also tried unchecking the "Display file size
information in folder tips" and "Show pop-up description for folder
and desktop items" checkboxes within the Folder Options. No dice.
The list still comes to a halt while scrolling.

I guess the next logical question is..... is there a way to disable
loading of extra attributes (even in List view)? In other words,
simply load *only* the file names and nothing else. -- OR -- Does
anyone know of any third-party software that mimics Windows Explorer
99% with the exception of loading the extra file information?
(Perhaps an option that can be enabled or disabled at will.)

Please include some relevant details of the Original Post and other
peoples' replies when you post.
Clicking on a message and seeing a standalone post, with no previous
details is a pain

 

[philaphan80]

My apologies. I'm not sure I understand what you mean. I use Google
Groups to post messages, if that matters. (??) I simply click the
Reply button and post my message.

 

[philaphan80]

Still trying to troubleshoot this issue. Everyone's input has been
helpful so far -- thanks! I'm hoping someone else will have some new
ideas.

Here's what I have to date:

Problem: When browsing a network folder with a large amount of files
(in this case, over 13,000) within Windows Explorer on Windows XP, a
page down operation (or mouse click or scroll) causes explorer to hang
while loading some kind of background information.

* First assumed it was the icons, because they're the last thing to be
drawn. Increased the icon cache with no luck. Later determined it to
be whatever operation is taking place before the icons are drawn.
(File attributes, perhaps?)

* Problem is apparently limited to XP. (Windows 2000 test within
Virtual PC was flawless. Not tested within 2003 or Vista.)

* List or Details view apparently causes slowdown. Once view is
changed to Tiles or Icons, slowdown disappears. Icons still draw
slowly (assuming background information is still populating slowly)
but Explorer allows me to scroll lightning fast through list without
hanging.

* Looking for a better workaround or solution. Ideal solution would
be information leading to a hotfix that fixes the above issue. (List
and Details view would be allowed to scroll as fast as Tiles and Icons
view without causing explorer to hang.) Acceptable workaround would
be some way to disable background loading of file attributes, either
via hotfix, registry tweak or both.

Any clues? Thanks!

 

[Kelly]

Hi,

Run line 157: http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

--

All the Best,
Kelly (MS-MVP/DTS&XP)

Taskbar Repair Tool Plus!
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/taskbarplus!.htm

 

[philaphan80]

Hi, Kelly. I tried line 157 and, though it forced Explorer to stop
refreshing itself, it unfortunately didn't help the issue at hand.

FYI to all -- I found the following in several newsgroups. I applied
the fix to my home machine (XP) and rebooted, but it made no
difference when browsing locally. The folder still took forever to
scroll through. I don't have a second machine to connect to my home
network, so I'm unable to test if it makes a difference in a server/
client situation. My hunch is that it wouldn't matter anyway since
the problem still exists locally. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer
\Parameters
Value Name: SizReqBuf
Data Type : REG_DWORD
Data : 65535 (decimal, FFFF hexadecimal)

The SizReqBuf fix actually made sense, so I'm a bit disappointed that
it didn't work. I'm open to more suggestions.

 

[philaphan80]

Recap with new information.....


Problem: Page down and scrolling operations within Windows Explorer on
Windows XP cause Explorer to hang while browsing network folders with
large amounts of files (in this case, over 13,000).

Environment: Windows XP Pro SP2 on a large (work) network which is
otherwise very fast, if not instant.


* First assumed the root problem was icon rendering since it took so
long to draw them.

* Increased the icon cache with no luck. Later determined it to be
whatever operation is taking place before the icons are drawn.
(Background loading of file properties, perhaps?)

* Discovered that List or Details views cause slowdown. Once view is
changed to Tiles or Icons, slowdown disappears. (The icons still draw
slowly, but Explorer allows me to scroll lightning fast through list
without hanging.)

* Tried disabling task pane in Explorer (Tools > Folder Options >
General > Use Windows classic folders). Figured maybe *it* was
loading the background information. No change.

* Tried replicating environment at home (Windows XP Pro SP2) by
creating a folder with 13,000 files within it (all 0 bytes).
Experienced similar problem at home when browsing locally.

* Tested "remote" browsing by using Windows Explorer on both Windows
2000 and Windows Vista RC1 within Virtual PC 2007 environments. HTML
mockup folder scrolled flawlessly on both. Tested all possible views.

* Tried increasing the "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet
\Services\LanmanServer
\Parameters\SizReqBuf" registry key to 65535 on home machine.
Rebooted. No change when browsing locally.

* Expanded test environment at home by creating multiple folders, each
with 13,000 files within them (still all 0 bytes). Split folders up
by file type to test theory that particular file types cause more
slowdown than others. File types tested: ai, asp, aspx, asx, avi,
doc, docx, exe, gif, htm, html, jpg, jsp, mdb, mov, mp3, mpg, pdf,
php, png, ppt, psd, rar, rtf, shtml, stm, tif, txt, wav, wmv, xls,
xlsx, xml, zip. Test results below.

Notably slow file types (all others scrolled very fast):

Windows XP Pro SP2 (home) -- exe (very slow), htm, html, xml, zip

Windows 2000 Pro (VPC) -- no slowdowns

Windows Vista RC 1 (VPC) -- exe (very slow)

Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition (VPC) -- exe (very slow), zip
(very slow)


* Problem is apparently limited to particular file types, especially
within XP. Something special must be loading in the background for
exe, htm, html, xml and zip files which causes XP to slow to a crawl
for a few seconds *per file*. 2000 worked like a champ and Vista
seems to have mostly corrected the issue.

So now my question is... what's wrong with XP?!? Why does it
experience this slowdown more than any other Windows OS I've tested so
far? Has anyone experienced this same issue and, if so, found a
solution? Any registry hacks to stop loading any extra information in
the background? (I'd rather skip the extra info. in order to make
Explorer scroll and hotkey faster.) Any hotfixes that sound
familiar? Any third-party software which acts 99% like Explorer
without the extra overhead?

As always, thanks in advance.