Windows crawls when I click on a drive with large MPG files

[Guest]

One of my hard drives has very large (4+ GB) MPG files. If I click on it with
Windows Explorer, I get a long flurry of disk activity during which other
applications either stall or crawl. During this time, Windows Task Manager
shows explorer.exe at 99%. This can last from about a minute to much longer
depending on how many large MPG files there are on the disk at the time.
After Explorer finishes whatever it is doing, everything returns to normal. I
can then click any folder on the disk and have no trouble accessing the
contents. However, if I go back to the initial Explorer display there is
another stall.

I am running Windows XP home edition. The upgrades are current.

Is there a fix for this?

Thanks!

 

[Gerry Cornell]

Using the pagefile?

Try Ctrl+Alt+Delete to select Task Manager and click the Performance
Tab. Under Commit Charge what is the Total, the Limit and the Peak?

How large is your hard disk and how much free space. Right click on
your C drive in Windows and select Properties to get this information.

What is your CPU processor speed? How much RAM memory? Right click on
your My Computer icon on your Desktop and select Properties to get
this information.

Select Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk CleanUp to
Empty your Recycle Bin and Remove Temporary Internet Files. Also
select Start, All Programs, accessories, System Tools, Disk CleanUp,
More Options, System Restore and remove all but the latest System
Restore point. Run Disk Defragmenter. Follow this procedure for each
partition in turn.


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Kerry Brown]

One of my hard drives has very large (4+ GB) MPG files. If I click on it
with
Windows Explorer, I get a long flurry of disk activity during which other
applications either stall or crawl. During this time, Windows Task Manager
shows explorer.exe at 99%. This can last from about a minute to much
longer
depending on how many large MPG files there are on the disk at the time.
After Explorer finishes whatever it is doing, everything returns to
normal. I
can then click any folder on the disk and have no trouble accessing the
contents. However, if I go back to the initial Explorer display there is
another stall.

I am running Windows XP home edition. The upgrades are current.

Is there a fix for this?

Thanks!

When you right click on a mpg file what options show up? It is likely that
some program has installed an add-on that is causing this problem. It could
also be a codec that you recently installed.

 

[Guest]

Gerry,

Thanks for your suggestions.

I am using pagefile

The Commit charge was:
Total: 469000 (+/-)
Limit: 1439612
Peak: 1667152

The hard drive with the large MPG files is 102 GB and was about 2/3 full

My CPU is running at 2 Ghz

I have 512 MB of RAM

The recycle bins were emptied and a defragment was run on the disk with the
large MPG files.

The problem persists.

Some further information:

Just to make sure, I deleted all the large MPG files. I could then click on
the drive with no crawl.

I then created a new large MPG file (3.3 GB) and the crawl problem returned.
It persisted for 40 seconds.

I temporarily changed the .mpg extension on that file to .xmpg and the crawl
problem went away but returned when I changed the extension back to .mpg.
Whatever is going on, it seems to have something to do with MPG files.

Finally, I created a shortcut to the folder with the large MPG files and put
it on my desktop. I can access it with no ‘crawl’.

Thanks again,

Barrie

 

[Guest]

Kerry,

Thanks for your suggestions.

The only right click options that seemed out of the ordinary were 'send with
Yahoo e-mail' and 'scan with Norton anti-virus'. I uninstalled the Yahoo
e-mail program which got rid of the Yahoo e-mail option but that did not cure
my problem. Unless it is evident that the Norton anti-virus option is the
culprit, i'd rather keep it.

As for codecs, I can't remember the last time I installed one.

Some further information:

Just to make sure, I deleted all the large MPG files. I could then click on
the drive with no crawl.

I then created a new large MPG file (3.3 GB) and the crawl problem returned.
It persisted for 40 seconds.

I temporarily changed the .mpg extension on that file to .xmpg and the crawl
problem went away but returned when I changed the extension back to .mpg.
Whatever is going on, it seems to have something to do with MPG files.

Finally, I created a shortcut to the folder with the large MPG files and put
it on my desktop. I can access it with no ‘crawl’.

Thanks again.

Barrie

 

[Gerry Cornell]

My reaction is that your system relies on use of the pagefile.
Inevitably handling a large mpg file will be slow because the pagefile
is being used. Can you add more RAM memory?


--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Guest]

Gerry,

My motherboard will hold up to 1 GB of RAM. Do you feel it likely that my
crawl problem would be improved enough to make doubling my present memory
size worthwhile? Also, do you feel that it would make resource hungry
programs like Nero Vision run significantly faster?

Regards,

Barrie

 

[Gerry Cornell]

Test during typical usage i.e. not with large jpg files unles you
consider playing with these is typical usage. It is the undo feature
which can generate high memory usage.

You may find it helpful to know exactly how much of your pagefile is
being used. Use page file monitor to observe what is the peak
usage.Start it to run immediately after start-up and look at the log
at theend of the session.The log is Pagefile log.txt. If you right
click on the file in Windows Explorer and select Send to, Desktop
(Create Shortcut). The same applies to XP_PageFileMon.exe. You will
need to run it at intervals as it does not log continuously once
started.

A small utility to monitor pagefile usage:
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm

--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Guest]

Gerry,

I finally figured out what was causing the crawl. I am using a thumbnail
view in the drive folder. For reasons I don’t understand, explorer seems to
go entirely through at least some of the video files in the subfolders to
make the 1/4 size pictures you see on the thumbnail folders. Why it doesn’t
just use the first frame is beyond me.

I got around this by choosing a picture for the thumbnail folder in the
customize screen for the folder with my large MPG files.

Regards,

Barrie