images load slowly from desktop, but not from "my documents"

[C.M.G.]

When I double click a small jpg file that is located in "my documents," it
is displayed by "windows picture and fax viewer" in less than one second.

When I copy the same jpg file to the desktop, "windows picture and fax
viewer" opens right away, but it takes more than 10 seconds to actually
display the image.

Since I often keep image files on the desktop, this is a real pain! How can
I fix this problem?

Thanks,

Clem.

 

[Guest]

I'm getting a similar issue - it appears Picture & fax Viewer enumerates all
images in the current folder. You can see this for yourself when you open an
image in a folder containing only a few imagaes compared to one containing
several thousand.

The problem is even worse when you click on the Print icon - it launches the
Photo Print Wizard, which scans each image in the current folder into memory
before showing any dialogue boxes (try a folder with 46,270 TIFs in it and
you'll see what I mean - 10 minute delay with a 4GB working memory set!).

I can't find any reghacks or settings that change this "default" behaviour
anywhere on the web either...

cheers
Rob

 

[Sharon F]

I'm getting a similar issue - it appears Picture & fax Viewer enumerates all
images in the current folder. You can see this for yourself when you open an
image in a folder containing only a few imagaes compared to one containing
several thousand.

The problem is even worse when you click on the Print icon - it launches the
Photo Print Wizard, which scans each image in the current folder into memory
before showing any dialogue boxes (try a folder with 46,270 TIFs in it and
you'll see what I mean - 10 minute delay with a 4GB working memory set!).

I can't find any reghacks or settings that change this "default" behaviour
anywhere on the web either...

cheers
Rob

Is it possible the extra time is being used to draw new thumbnails? If you
allow thumbnails to be cached, is there still a delay?

 

[Guest]

Hi Sharon

Doesn't seem to make a difference whether thumbnails are cached or not.
I see this behaviour when browsing folders with large amounts of TIFs.
On our network however, we have a GIS type system serving up TIFs and the
problem still manifests there - I'm gonna see if the web admins can restrict
"list" access to those folders on the webserver to see if the problem goes
away.

Another interesting point discovered with Windows Fax/Picture viewer, is
that if the TIF/TIFF file is multipage, then the photo wizard only shows
those pages (ie - it doesn't enumerate all the images in the current folder).

However if the TIF file is a single page image, then it goes ahead and
enumerates all files (and appears to lock up for 10+ minutes).

cheers
Rob

:

 

[Sharon F]

Hi Sharon

Doesn't seem to make a difference whether thumbnails are cached or not.
I see this behaviour when browsing folders with large amounts of TIFs.
On our network however, we have a GIS type system serving up TIFs and the
problem still manifests there - I'm gonna see if the web admins can restrict
"list" access to those folders on the webserver to see if the problem goes
away.

Another interesting point discovered with Windows Fax/Picture viewer, is
that if the TIF/TIFF file is multipage, then the photo wizard only shows
those pages (ie - it doesn't enumerate all the images in the current folder).

However if the TIF file is a single page image, then it goes ahead and
enumerates all files (and appears to lock up for 10+ minutes).

cheers
Rob

Not all TIF/TIFF files are created equal. The format is not set in stone
and there can be variances in how a program or filter will handle these
files. Take a trip to the MS Knowledge Base, select the XP support center
and type in TIF or TIFF to get a long list of articles.

I'm not getting you any closer to a solution but hopefully the information
will give you an idea about why some image types may not be handled as
expected or handled consistently. It's also possible that these images are
causing or at least contributing to the slowness problem...

Wondering if putting the TIFF files into subfolders would speed up the
opening of their root folders? If it does help, hopefully that kind of
organization would work for your organization.