Slow deletion of files

jlauret7 said:

~~~
Is it possible that a Windows update caused this? Let's say, a past 4 months update or so ...
I am at a loss as per what to check or try next ...

Just to address these questions in a less busy post - I'll repeat that my testing was in a VM that was all patched up. A fresh and frozen OS build only 24 days old.

It would be interesting to see how things work for you within a VM. That should take the chip set drivers out of the equation. You can do a test for free. Only your labor (and maybe your download bandwidth - if you need/want an w7 ISO with SP1*) would be involved. You can skip registration/activation during the install. This should give you 30 days of testing. Dump the VM after that.

*See the note box in step one of this tutorial for a link to those W7 ISO files.

UsernameIssues said:

What is reason for using this method for deleting files?
Is it the fact that the files can go to the recycle bin?

As noted, explaining this problem using DeleteXP.exe was just an example to illustrated (within a confined
and smaller program) what I am experiencing with other tools such as Calibre eBook. I thought that it
would be easier to trace what it does (obviously, Calibre is a much more complicated program).

But the reason I have DeleteXP.exe on my laptop IS indeed for scripting purposes and the fact that
it moves files to the Recycle Bin - an example usage: from a cygwin cron, I can search for trash files
and delete (but in case something goes wrong I can always recover). But this is a side track from the
core issue I am experiencing.

The point remains that a few utilities exhibit this slow file deletion behavior and they seem to have one thing in common: the use of the old(er) delete API. I used to have this problem as well with a tool called TotalUninstall ... Every uninstall using that tool would at some stage delete files so slowly that it became unusable ... until I upgraded to the Windows 7 / Windows 8 compatible version (then all was well again).

UsernameIssues said:

...
It would be interesting to see how things work for you within a VM. That should take the chip set drivers out of the equation. You can do a test for free. Only your labor (and maybe your download bandwidth - if you need/want an w7 ISO with SP1*) would be involved. You can skip registration/activation during the install. This should give you 30 days of testing. Dump the VM after that.

*See the note box in step one of this tutorial for a link to those W7 ISO files.

I will try following this suggestion (never did that before) and report.

Layback Bear said:

I'm not confused. I just want a safe website to study and understand that program.

UsernameIssues provided the links in this follow up #post2486758 (I provided the executable in #post2486554). I found it from EasyTools at Freebies .

Please, see also my answer #post2486874.

I probably should have explained that I asked why you had these apps (and if you needed the recycle bin feature) so that maybe forum members can help you find a command line tool that calls a newer API and still uses the recycle bin.

Even if the end of this research finds some combo of software/driver/whatever on your computer that causes this slowdown - the best solution for us to help you with might just be to find a new set of command line apps.

To be clear: I do get (and appreciate) that DeleteXP is what you picked/provided for us to help you with. I know that Calibre eBook is doing this delay too. You are probably write about the API that they call... but the solution for you might still be the same: find better apps.

It would be interesting to know why the delay happens for you, but since I cannot reproduce the delete that you highlighted. I'm not sure what to try next on my end. If you want, you can also try the clean boot steps mentioned here: Troubleshoot Application Conflicts by Performing a Clean Startup

UsernameIssues said:

I probably should have explained that I asked why you had these apps (and if you needed the recycle bin feature) so that maybe forum members can help you find a command line tool that calls a newer API and still uses the recycle bin.

Even if the end of this research finds some combo of software/driver/whatever on your computer that causes this slowdown - the best solution for us to help you with might just be to find a new set of command line apps.

I appreciate your suggestions and help. The command line DeleteXP.exe issue is secondary however (was just an example and I can leave without a working solution for that command line tool ... although if you end up finding a better tool, I won't say no either as it has its convenience).

The real problem I have is with Calibre - unlike my story and similar experience with TotalUninstall (older version suddenly also performed deletes as slow as hell / upgrade resolved the issue), there is no "upgrade" per-se I can perform for Calibre (get their tool as-is and that's it). Suggesting to the authors to try changing SHFileOperation() to the newer IFileOperation() leaded to them saying "no way" (or equivalent) and that the problem is mine as they could not reproduce the issue (https://bugs.launchpad.net/calibre/+bug/1205889). Don't get me wrong: I agree with their answer (can't change code for one person) and also appreciated that they tried to reproduce the problem and could not (BTW: this means I won't on a fresh Windows 7 install) and also understand why they don't want to change their code (IFileOperation() came up with Vista onward; they would have problem supporting XP with one source if they change their code using a more recent API call).

But if I could re-compile their code and change the calls as a test, I would because those delete problems have not appeared in ANY program that are declared fully Windows 7 compatible (but apart from gcc/cygwin, I do not have any compiler tool): what I would do is try to change SHFileOperation() to an IFileOperation() call and see if that changes anything ("SH" suggests something to do with a shell invocation; perhaps something goes bad there but I can't think of what - your pointer to the AV was a good thing to try for sure).

UsernameIssues said:

To be clear: I do get (and appreciate) that DeleteXP is what you picked/provided for us to help you with. I know that Calibre eBook is doing this delay too. You are probably write about the API that they call... but the solution for you might still be the same: find better apps.

It would be interesting to know why the delay happens for you, but since I cannot reproduce the delete that you highlighted. I'm not sure what to try next on my end. If you want, you can also try the clean boot steps mentioned here: Troubleshoot Application Conflicts by Performing a Clean Startup

My post crossed this one. Would you know of a better tool than ProcessMonitor to trace an apps call stack (and child-process)?

Yes - we cross posted. I should have refreshed :-(

I understand about wanting Process Monitor to grab the info that you mentioned and maybe offer the option to automatically trace children - maybe that will come someday. I don't know of a tool that does those things, but debugging is not really my area and I'm not a programmer...

I installed Calibre before I saw your post/link to your Calibre forum/thread. I set Calibre up for general device and epub docs - then grabed a dozen or so epub docs from gutenberg.org. They all went into the manager just fine and they all deleted (using Calibre's GUI) in a flash. Process Monitor showed no delays.

Maybe I should have pointed you to the clean boot tutorial earlier because is it looking more and more like a software conflict; but I think that you will like having a Virtual Machine to temporarily play with.

Based on the guess in the Calibre forum/thread that something is making the Recycle Bin slow - I would suggest that you try Calibre inside your Virtual Machine without (and then with) your anti-virus tool. I'm not familiar with Outpost's security app(s) so I cannot say that they suffer from the same issue that other security apps sometimes do: that of not always uninstalling well. A number of companies offer more aggressive cleanup tools to be used after the normal uninstall/reboot.