I think this is all to do with file searching

hi ...

i'm running w7 pro 32bit and use windows explorer a great deal and my problem concerns the larger of the 2 windows on the right-hand side of the main window. in detail view, this right-hand side is split into 4 columns ... name, size, type & date. i have no need of others except length when i'm dealing with music files. most of the time, name is the one that i use but sometimes, i also use the date column to get the files in date order.

now, my problem is this ... any and every time i click one of the other columns at the top of the right window to change the priority, a darkened bar starts to move across the one of the top bars containing the full path name at the top of the main window. as it progresses along this bar, it moves slower and slower towards the right and this of course, takes ages and is extremely annoying. a while back, i read that this could be caused by a file called thumbs.db which was to do with searching but could be deleted without doing harm. so i found that i had 12 files of that name, all to do with photos. i deleted all 12 which seemed to do the trick for a short while but now, i'm looking at the dark bar again.

does anyone know how i can get rid of this once and for all please? any & all help will be much appreciated.

If you want to turn them off, there is a setting under File&Folder Options / View. If you want to use them, but clean them out periodically, you can use CCleaner, with the setting being under "Windows Explorer".

@ paul 1149, thank you for your suggestion ...
had a good look at file & folder oprions but couldn't see which setting you suggested.
i am familiar with ccleaner, i fact, i use it often.
sadly, my problem and question remains ...

Try this:

To turn them off:




To purge them:

thank you ..
your ccleaner screenshot showed the same settings that i use.
as regards folder options/view-always show icons etc., i generally have it unticked but i ticked it to active.
unfortunately, there was no change and the dark bar still ploughed itself across the top of windows explorer so i reversed and unticked it again.
the problem remains ... it's annoying but perhaps it's something i'm just going to have to live with.
in my original message about this, i mentioned searching as a possible cause. perhaps it's nothing to do with that and is something else entirely.
anyway, thank you again for your suggestions.

How is the system running otherwise? Maybe you should back up your data, then test the drive thoroughly.

believe it or not, the computer is running very well ... regular defrags, virus checking & i install all installations manually as well as regular checks inside control panel/programs & features to see if anything's lurking there that's not wanted. backups too are done regularly. i run separate 4 hard drives ... c: exclusively for w7, d: for personal stuff like photos, letters, home generated stuff etc., e: for music & videos and f: for all installed programmes. easy to keep track and whenever i do happen to get hit with a bad dose of nasties, it's only the c: drive that's affected which results in a re-partition/re-format. quite apart from that, i do that as a matter of course every six months or so anyway which gets rid of the rubbish. i'm no expert, not microsoft qualified or anything but i do tend to be pernickety. "a place for everything .... etc. etc."
so that's it from me ... probably over-answered your question but no worries.
cheers.

These are separate drives, not merely partitions? And does this lag occur when explorer is focused on any one of the drives?

the 4 drives are all separate, all with a single partition to its maximum (save for a few meg) and all fitted internally.
the delay only happens when i'm in w/explorer details view and want to change the order of any one of the 4 columns (eg: name/size/type/date). my file/folder target can be in any of the 4 drives. as soon as i click on the particular title at the top of any one of those columns to change its order, the path name in the address bar of the file/folder in question, starts to change colour as it moves across the window from left to right and the further it goes, the slower in moves.

i've always thought this process was to do with searching thus my title at the start of this series of posts ... thumbnails & rebuilding never came into my mind and i don't remember it ever happening when i ran xp. if it didn't happen then, why now in w7?
yesterday afternoon, i ran chkdsk on each of the 4 and all results reported no bad clusters etc.
i'm not sure how to check to see if there's an hdd controller problem suffice to say that all drives are always visible and accessible.
and finally, yes, there are multiple active operations running at any one time ... not many but more than one (numbers vary) ... for example, an antivirus check, music, emailing etc. etc.

hope this helps and my thanks to you both.