New
#21
I don't think I am known as an unfriendly person and my comment had no unfriendly intent. If you took it that way I am sorry and I apologize.
You have to understand that a lot of new members think that we are a Microsoft helpforum with MS employees. That is, of course, not so. That;s why your embedded question cannot be answered here but only by the people that decided on that design point. -- Peace.
Windows will try to provide a value for the folder size on a mouse hover. But it may not be accurate. The file system doesn't maintain a running total of the disk space a folder consumes so the only way it can work is to recursively look at every file in the folder. With a large network drive and a slow network connection that can take a long time, not to mention the network bandwidth consumed for what is essentially a minor feature. So Windows Explorer will spend a short time with space determination and then quit. The problem would be even worse updating the size column.
Raymond Chen dealt with this some time ago in his blog.
The Old New Thing - Site Home - MSDN Blogs
Sorry I don't have a link to the article.
Thanks LMiller7. Yes, the mechanics and the science behind a lot of my grumblings are well beyond my ken which is why I look to those with knowledge and experience here on this forum. It never even dawned on me that a domestic OS would be constrained by issues concerning networks; thank-you for your explanation: it now makes some sense. I had assumed it was a simple matter such as indexing- or not - as the case may be, and that I had turned something off inadvertently.
Windows 7 isn't just a domestic OS. It is also used in large corporate networks where network performance and bandwidth are major concerns. It is a concern for many home users as well. There are also large external drives to consider.
Third party applications are under the same constraints as Windows Explorer. For local drives the feature usually works well. For situations where it would cause a problem the user can turn it off.
But things are not so simple for Windows Explorer. This utility is used by the lowest common denominator of users, those who know nothing of computers and don't want to learn. Many will be using Windows Explorer in a network environment and experience serious problems. Guess who gets the blame? Of course an option could be provided to turn off the feature, but few would use it, or even be aware of it's existence.
This is the article I mentioned previously:
Why doesn't Explorer show recursive directory size as an optional column? - The Old New Thing - Site Home - MSDN Blogs
The links are also worthwhile reading.
It is written by Raymond Chen, a developer with Microsoft since at least Windows 95.
^^^
so, I am thinking a computer would be faster if one disables ALL columns save the file/folder name?
Thank-you LMiller7: again, an insightful and comprehensible contribution. I really appreciate your attentions.