Explorer SLOW on large folders

fseal · May 17, 2009

I'm finding Explorer to be extremely slow on large folders (containing 2,000+ files for example) Much slower than Vista and insanely slower than XP.

It seems to REALLY be tryng hard to peek at every file and gleen info from them every time you open the folder instead of just populating the list as fast as posible. When doing work on your files, the last thing you want is to have to wait 15 seconds for the folder to open when all you want to do is drag a file into it and close it.

I have already set all the folders to the standard details view / general with nothing but the standard name/date/type/size columns which on XP are INSANELY fast to populate. Probably not indexing... previous versions maybe? Or new "auto" functionality built in?

Anyone know of anyway of completely turning off the helpfulness that's been added to explorer for good? I don't need to know I have 2,000 files listed as "unspecified" if it's going to take 15 seconds to figure that out

fseal · May 17, 2009

Hmmm, may have a fix for this. By default folders come up set to "Optimize this folder for: General" but swithcing folders with a lot of files over to "Documents" seems to stop Explorer from trying to figure out anything about the files that is not already in the file tables.

Nothing like asking about a problem to make you REALLy try to figure it out :/

SevenUser · Jul 13, 2009

Many thanks for this! It certainly solved the problem here. Windows 7 was 'optimising' my TV recordings folder as a 'video' folder. Listing the folder contents was like treacle.

I used your advice and reset the 'optimisation' to 'General', and now everything is quick and smooth when listing folder contents.

Chappy · Jul 13, 2009

fseal said:
Hmmm, may have a fix for this. By default folders come up set to "Optimize this folder for: General" but swithcing folders with a lot of files over to "Documents" seems to stop Explorer from trying to figure out anything about the files that is not already in the file tables.

Nothing like asking about a problem to make you REALLy try to figure it out :/

LOL..how true!
I don't know how many times in my early years that I asked a question on a board, then immediately went about testing some new idea, and find myself fixing things before I ever got an answer from the board.
So many times, the second post was me posting back to say that I found the problem and explaining what I did...just like you did here. A little nostalgic!

VeeEss · Jul 14, 2009

We really need WinFS, relational db's for the win!

Kari · Jul 14, 2009

fseal said:
Hmmm, may have a fix for this. By default folders come up set to "Optimize this folder for: General" but swithcing folders with a lot of files over to "Documents" seems to stop Explorer from trying to figure out anything about the files that is not already in the file tables.

Nothing like asking about a problem to make you REALLy try to figure it out :/

Had the same problem, your solution seems to work. I´d rep you but for reasons unknown to me your posts have no rep-button.

7echno7im · Jul 14, 2009

You can try this. Supported by MS too. It helps with huge folders and files with many files and dirs.

How to Disable the 8.3 Name Creation on NTFS Partitions

7echno7im · Jul 14, 2009

it basically disables the short name create for 16bit applications which required it, for large folders with tons of files and folder, it should help.

fseal · Jul 15, 2009

Kari said:
Had the same problem, your solution seems to work. I´d rep you but for reasons unknown to me your posts have no rep-button.

I may need to hand out a couple mor reps to get any more maybe?

Or maybe I got a complaint!

[Edit] Hmm this new one has a button, Maybe the button expires after a while...

Kari · Jul 15, 2009

fseal said:
I may need to hand out a couple mor reps to get any more maybe?

Or maybe I got a complaint!

[Edit] Hmm this new one has a button, Maybe the button expires after a while...

No, it was just that you cannot rep old posts. Now you got your rep, I gave it to your last post in this thread.

fakeasdf · Jul 15, 2009

7echno7im said:
You can try this. Supported by MS too. It helps with huge folders and files with many files and dirs.

How to Disable the 8.3 Name Creation on NTFS Partitions

Interesting, I'd have thought they'd have disabled it by default in x64, seeing as it is unable to run 16 bit applications. They were the reason they were keeping 8.3 around...

7echno7im · Jul 15, 2009

fakeasdf said:
Interesting, I'd have thought they'd have disabled it by default in x64, seeing as it is unable to run 16 bit applications. They were the reason they were keeping 8.3 around...

Well there are other uses, and 8.3 names will be created forever it seems. 16-bit was just one use for these types of names.

dcostalis · Jul 19, 2009

8.3 helps with indexing speed. 11 characters * number of folders instead of hundreds.

fakeasdf · Jul 19, 2009

dcostalis said:
8.3 helps with indexing speed. 11 characters * number of folders instead of hundreds.

Unfortunately they can't just index an 8.3 version of folders and files. Searching through indexed 8.3 values would give only partial results, requiring the system to turn around and re-search all of the files and folders real names...

7echno7im · Jul 19, 2009

dcostalis said:
8.3 helps with indexing speed. 11 characters * number of folders instead of hundreds.

Can you quote a source where this would be beneficial? 8.3 name create was for compatibility with legacy apps, which is 99.99% not needed any more. This process just creates a duplicate naming scheme that is compatible with older apps. How would indexing need or be affected by this?

From what I read, Windows indexing may or may not be able to index 8.3 names depending on the punctuation. But if there is not need for 8.3 names, there would be no need to index them. Correct me if I am wrong.

Everywhere I read, the 8.3 naming convention degrades performance and can be disabled with almost no impact on compatibility unless you are running really, really, really, old apps, for which an older operating system may be a better choice.

HDRock · Nov 29, 2009

Folders Slow

fseal said:
Hmmm, may have a fix for this. By default folders come up set to "Optimize this folder for: General" but swithcing folders with a lot of files over to "Documents" seems to stop Explorer from trying to figure out anything about the files that is not already in the file tables.

Nothing like asking about a problem to make you REALLy try to figure it out :/

Thank you for this. I was trying to organize my videos folder on a network drive, from my windows 7 machine
That folder is 180 GBS ,it was ridiculously slow,it was set to optimize,videos.
I changed it to General, Documents, Pictures, and Music, they all worked fine.
???Should I set this to, (also apply this template to all subfolders)???
Thanks Again

Asmokki · Nov 29, 2009

plz do post me the instructions for me to do this for whole partitions...

Explorer SLOW on large folders

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