Don't put your pictures into "My Pictures"

[Rich Pasco]

I just finished organizing over thirty thousand (30,000)
digital photos from many years of photography into hundreds
of sub-folders of My Documents\My Pictures.

Now, when I open Control Panel / Display Properties and
click on its Desktop tab, there is a five- to ten- minute
delay at 100% CPU while those 30,000 pictures are harvested
and presented in the Background selection list.

Please tell me of a way to avoid this? All my potential
wallpapers are in a separate folder (C:\images\wallpaper)
and I'd really rather not wait, each time I open Desktop,
for my entire My Pictures tree to be mashed into a single
very long list that I won't select from anyway.

Google found several other posts on the subject but they all
seem to suggest "that's what Windows does, so deal with it."

The only solution offered seems to be to move all my pictures
out of "My Pictures" again. Gee, I thought that's what that
folder was for!

I hope they are wrong:

http://www.daniweb.com/forums/showthread.php?t=105429
http://forum.soft32.com/win4/Displa...ackground-displays-hundred-ftopict238359.html
http://www.softwaretipsandtricks.co...ting-pictures-display-properties-desktop.html
http://www.technologyquestions.com/...roperties-shows-jpegs-my-pictures-folder.html
http://www.tech-archive.net/Archive/WinXP/microsoft.public.windowsxp.general/2004-11/19325.html
http://www.suggestafix.com/index.php?showtopic=27285
http://forums.techguy.org/windows-nt-2000-xp/516053-display-properties-desktop-background-file.html

- Rich

 

[Roger]

The only solution offered seems to be to move all my pictures
out of "My Pictures" again. Gee, I thought that's what that
folder was for!

Rename "My Picture" folder to whatever name you wish and create another
"My Picture" folder.

 

[Bob I]

No, it is a monitored folder for convenience and personalizing your PC
user space. If you don't like the effect caused by inserting 30,000
pictures into a monitored system folder, move them.

 

[Mark]

Others have mentioned solutions. To that I add: After moving the pics to
another folder not under My Pictures, you can also create a shortcut to the
new folder under My Pictures to (at least) be able to quickly navigate to
them.

 

[VanguardLH]

I just finished organizing over thirty thousand (30,000)
digital photos from many years of photography into hundreds
of sub-folders of My Documents\My Pictures.

Now, when I open Control Panel / Display Properties and
click on its Desktop tab, there is a five- to ten- minute
delay at 100% CPU while those 30,000 pictures are harvested
and presented in the Background selection list.

Please tell me of a way to avoid this? All my potential
wallpapers are in a separate folder (C:\images\wallpaper)
and I'd really rather not wait, each time I open Desktop,
for my entire My Pictures tree to be mashed into a single
very long list that I won't select from anyway.

Google found several other posts on the subject but they all
seem to suggest "that's what Windows does, so deal with it."

The only solution offered seems to be to move all my pictures
out of "My Pictures" again. Gee, I thought that's what that
folder was for!

- Open Windows Explorer.
- Tools -> Options menu.
- "Do not cache thumbnails" option.

See if setting or clearing it helps your situation. I have it cleared
(so to NOT cache the thumbnail views of images in a folder). Once you
change this option for that folder, and if you want the same for other
folders, remember to click the "Apply to all folders" button. I had to
dig for this for several minutes (I remembered the option but not where
to find it). Should've used Google. Duh! Found this:

http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/article03-204

The only time you'll get slowed is when you visit a folder and have the
Thumbnails view enabled since it will have to read all the files to
create new thumbnails. If you don't use this view then you don't need
to cache a thumbnail database for them. I don't use thumbnails view and
instead pick a likely file and look at its preview in the left-side
pane. If you do use thumbnails view, be sure to not have more than a
thousand, or two, files in that folder, or even less (use hierarchy in
the folders to categorize the files into smaller groups).

I have one folder that has 55K files under a multitude of subfolders;
however, that is not the My Pictures folder but somewhere else. For my
My Pictures folder, it just has 431 files.

If the above doesn't help, I'm wondering if you have more than, say, 3
dozen entries listed in the Background listbox under that Desktop tab of
Display Properties dialog. The wallpapers in the list are found under:

C:\WINDOWS\ (.bmp files)
and
C:\WINDOWS\Web\Wallpaper\ (.bmp and .jpg files)

How many total files (.bmp under C:\Windows and all image files under
the Wallpaper folder) are in those folders? Just to be sure Windows is
configured to look at the default (install-time) location for wallpaper
images, look at the value listed under the following registry key:

Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion
Data: WallPaperDir
Value: %SystemRoot%\Web\Wallpaper

Above is the value that I show and that folder is the one used to
compile the list of images shown in the Background listbox (along with
image files under C:\Windows).

 

[db]

you might want to
turn off the thumbnail
view for my pictures.

then utilize a different
program like windows
photo gallery to index
and present those files.

with 30,000 images
you might simply need
more memory or graphics
power.

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

also each image, all
30,000 of them, are
also highly fragmented
throughout your disk and
inhibiting your system
performance.

so you should move them
off the system partition and
into a separate partition or
drive or cd or dvd or
microsoft's skydrive.
--

db·´¯`·...¸><)))º>
DatabaseBen, Retired Professional
- Systems Analyst
- Database Developer
- Accountancy
- Veteran of the Armed Forces
- @hotmail.com
"share the nirvana" - dbZen

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Rich Pasco]

- Open Windows Explorer.
- Tools -> Options menu.
- "Do not cache thumbnails" option.

See if setting or clearing it helps your situation.

The box was not checked. I checked it, then returned to
Control Panel / Display Properties / Desktop and again
waited five minutes while the system again generated a
selection list of 30,000 filenames.

Basically, it made no difference.

Found this:

http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/article03-204

The point of that article (and your post) is well taken--it solved
another mystery I had, which is why some folders always showed
thumbnails even when I had chosen "Details" and "Apply to all folders".

However, I'm afraid it is irrelevant to the problem I posted.
Even with the "Do not cache" box checked, Windows still takes
a long time to compose that list of 30,000 file names.

If the above doesn't help, I'm wondering if you have more than, say, 3
dozen entries listed in the Background listbox under that Desktop tab of
Display Properties dialog.

Oh yes, as I said, there are 30,000 such entries!

The wallpapers in the list are found under:

C:\WINDOWS\ (.bmp files)
and
C:\WINDOWS\Web\Wallpaper\ (.bmp and .jpg files)

And also in ...\My Documents\My Pictures which was the point
of my post. Much as I might like it to omit searching that
tree, I can't figure out how to do that.

How many total files (.bmp under C:\Windows and all image files under
the Wallpaper folder) are in those folders?

Not many. The 30,000 files are in My Documents\My Pictures.

Just to be sure Windows is
configured to look at the default (install-time) location for wallpaper
images, look at the value listed under the following registry key:

Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion
Data: WallPaperDir
Value: %SystemRoot%\Web\Wallpaper

Yes, that's what I have.

But it still lists all the images in My Documents\My Pictures as well.
And I don't know how to make it not do that.

- Rich

 

[Rich Pasco]

you might want to
turn off the thumbnail
view for my pictures.

I did, just now, for all folders.

then utilize a different
program like windows
photo gallery to index
and present those files.

I am happy with Thumbs Plus from Cerious Software
http://www.cerious.com/

I don't use Explorer to look at photos.

with 30,000 images
you might simply need
more memory or graphics
power.

I have plenty of memory (4 GB).

But the problem is that Windows wants to list all
30,000 images in the selection menu for wallpaper.

also each image, all
30,000 of them, are
also highly fragmented
throughout your disk and
inhibiting your system
performance.

That's irrelevant to my post. I don't want Windows to access
any of them when creating the Wallpaper selection list.

so you should move them
off the system partition and
into a separate partition or
drive or cd or dvd or
microsoft's skydrive.

Well, that would certainly "solve" the problem--if they weren't
in My Pictures, then Windows wouldn't find them! But I was hoping
for a way to tell Windows to not list the files from My Pictures
in the wallpaper menu.

- Rich

 

[Richard in AZ]

| db wrote:
|
| > you might want to
| > turn off the thumbnail
| > view for my pictures.
|
| I did, just now, for all folders.
|
| > then utilize a different
| > program like windows
| > photo gallery to index
| > and present those files.
|
| I am happy with Thumbs Plus from Cerious Software
| http://www.cerious.com/
|
| I don't use Explorer to look at photos.
|
| > with 30,000 images
| > you might simply need
| > more memory or graphics
| > power.
|
| I have plenty of memory (4 GB).
|
| But the problem is that Windows wants to list all
| 30,000 images in the selection menu for wallpaper.
|
| > also each image, all
| > 30,000 of them, are
| > also highly fragmented
| > throughout your disk and
| > inhibiting your system
| > performance.
|
| That's irrelevant to my post. I don't want Windows to access
| any of them when creating the Wallpaper selection list.
|
| > so you should move them
| > off the system partition and
| > into a separate partition or
| > drive or cd or dvd or
| > microsoft's skydrive.
|
| Well, that would certainly "solve" the problem--if they weren't
| in My Pictures, then Windows wouldn't find them! But I was hoping
| for a way to tell Windows to not list the files from My Pictures
| in the wallpaper menu.
|
| - Rich

Sorry, but once Windows looks for wallpaper in "My Pictures" it always looks there.
There is no registry hack or any other known way to prevent it.
Make a new Pictures folder and move the pictures.