Still no change between Vista and Win 7 in some ways

[RAMWolff]

Since the problem comes up with ZIP files, would it make any difference if you turn off "Show compressed ZIP archives as folders"? Annoyances.org - How do I turn off Compressed Folders (built-in support for ZIP files) in Windows Vista and XP?

Actually it's more the EXE's that are very very slow to refresh in the folders much more than the zips....

Here is a screen shot of my modified Advanced options dialog:

Below that is a folder that contains nothing but EXE's I've yet to install. In XP I would enter a folder like that and all the EXE's would have been represented by an icon within milliseconds. It was a full 30 seconds for this folder to update!

 

[RAMWolff]

If your heavy in the 3d community then you should be getting a SSD HD

I have a very good external HD from Seagate. It's not perfect, I will make sure my next one has a port for Firewire as USB 2.0 is a bit slow when transfering files. My Downloads folder though is not situated on this drive, it's located on an internal 2nd drive. I have 3 drives and a total of 5 partitions. All my internal drives are SATA drives!

 

[H2SO4]

Below that is a folder that contains nothing but EXE's I've yet to install. In XP I would enter a folder like that and all the EXE's would have been represented by an icon within milliseconds. It was a full 30 seconds for this folder to update!

I'm rather confident that the behaviour you're experiencing is not standard, and that it is caused by factors specific to your machine(s). That's not to say that it's somehow "your fault", but merely that you're in the habit of always installing some add-on or making a particular configuration change that leads to this behaviour, perhaps as no more than a side-effect.

Does it happen in safe mode?

Does it happen on ALL local drives? Network drives (if any)?

If you issue a DIR command in that directory (at the CMD prompt), is the response near-instantaneous like you'd expect it to be?

Does it happen if you test under a new user account, even if you have to create one solely for the purposes of testing?

If you have another machine close by and networked to this one, does it happen to the other box too while it's viewing the contents of the same folder as a mapped network drive, or through UNC (\\TargetName\ShareName)?

 

[fseal]

Question: Does this still happen when you are in "details" view? Or with a folder "customized" for "Documents" view?

I found that the icon views are just painfuly slow nbecause yes, windows is opening every file, looking for thumbnails and all kinds of other information to "database" and show in the "panel" views and such.

I set all my drives to the documents/Details view, made every folder use that as the default and I no longer have the slowdowns. I also have indexing off but I do have MS Security essentials. I do not think it is either of those, I believe it's the shell itself "shmedia.dll etc" that are parsing the files looking for icons and thumbnails and other information to use for a "richer" explorer experience.

 

[RAMWolff]

Below that is a folder that contains nothing but EXE's I've yet to install. In XP I would enter a folder like that and all the EXE's would have been represented by an icon within milliseconds. It was a full 30 seconds for this folder to update!

I'm rather confident that the behavior you're experiencing is not standard, and that it is caused by factors specific to your machine(s). That's not to say that it's somehow "your fault", but merely that you're in the habit of always installing some add-on or making a particular configuration change that leads to this behavior, perhaps as no more than a side-effect.

Does it happen in safe mode?

Haven't tried that yet...

Does it happen on ALL local drives? Network drives (if any)?

Yes

If you issue a DIR command in that directory (at the CMD prompt), is the response near-instantaneous like you'd expect it to be?

I don't use the Command Prompt unless it's dire so I don't know any of the common commands. I get brain freeze when I try to learn that sort of stuff!

Does it happen if you test under a new user account, even if you have to create one solely for the purposes of testing?

Haven't done that yet. These files are not kept on the C drive so not sure that that would be a way to test this out.

If you have another machine close by and networked to this one, does it happen to the other box too while it's viewing the contents of the same folder as a mapped network drive, or through UNC (\\TargetName\ShareName)?

Sorry, no other machine in my house, just this one!

You will find my responses in bold under your inquiries ....

 

[RAMWolff]

I set all my drives to the documents/Details view, made every folder use that as the default and I no longer have the slowdowns. I also have indexing off but I do have MS Security essentials. I do not think it is either of those, I believe it's the shell itself "shmedia.dll etc" that are parsing the files looking for icons and thumbnails and other information to use for a "richer" explorer experience.

Even in "Details" view I'm getting a delay!

 

[H2SO4]

Haven't tried that yet...

Less talking, more testing

I don't use the Command Prompt unless it's dire so I don't know any of the common commands. I get brain freeze when I try to learn that sort of stuff!

Start a CMD prompt instance (type CMD into the search box on the start menu to get there).

Type the name of the drive on which the files are kept and press enter. For example: D: <enter>

Type CD <full_path_to_the_affected_directory> and press enter. For example: CD D:\MyFiles\AffectedFolder <enter>

Type DIR and press enter.

Note how long it takes to ennumerate the folder contents.

Haven't done that yet. These files are not kept on the C drive so not sure that that would be a way to test this out.

It doesn't matter where they're kept. A second account will almost certainly have permissions to "see" the same local folder, thereby enabling you to test what happens in Explorer with that other user account.

 

[RAMWolff]

Haven't tried that yet...

Less talking, more testing

I don't use the Command Prompt unless it's dire so I don't know any of the common commands. I get brain freeze when I try to learn that sort of stuff!

Start a CMD prompt instance (type CMD into the search box on the start menu to get there).

Type the name of the drive on which the files are kept and press enter. For example: D: <enter>

Type CD <full_path_to_the_affected_directory> and press enter. For example: CD D:\MyFiles\AffectedFolder <enter>

Type DIR and press enter.

Note how long it takes to ennumerate the folder contents.

Haven't done that yet. These files are not kept on the C drive so not sure that that would be a way to test this out.

It doesn't matter where they're kept. A second account will almost certainly have permissions to "see" the same local folder, thereby enabling you to test what happens in Explorer with that other user account.

This is the path to the EXE's folder I'm testing in the CMD:

E:\!New Downloads\!!Mil 4 Females\!!NEW Install Files\DAZ EXE's

CMD states that this is not a recognizable path. Uh huh, well it's a path so now what?

and please don't instruct me to change the path, I have these folders set up like this for a reason!

 

[H2SO4]

This is the path to the EXE's folder I'm testing in the CMD:

E:\!New Downloads\!!Mil 4 Females\!!NEW Install Files\DAZ EXE's

CMD states that this is not a recognizable path. Uh huh, well it's a path so now what?

Put double quotes around the entire path, like this:

CD "E:\!New Downloads\!!Mil 4 Females\!!NEW Install Files\DAZ EXE's"

Otherwise, every space character is interpreted as the start of another token.

 

[RAMWolff]

This is the path to the EXE's folder I'm testing in the CMD:

E:\!New Downloads\!!Mil 4 Females\!!NEW Install Files\DAZ EXE's

CMD states that this is not a recognizable path. Uh huh, well it's a path so now what?

Put double quotes around the entire path, like this:

CD "E:\!New Downloads\!!Mil 4 Females\!!NEW Install Files\DAZ EXE's"

Otherwise, every space character is interpreted as the start of another token.

ah yes, I forgot the quotes..

Oh and I created a new account, logged off and into the new account. Same thing, slow loading files, mostly folders that contain EXE's!!

 

[deepbevel]

Yeah, the worst part is the additional layer of file sharing, now we have "home group" as well as "work group" and "public folders", with a right click option for sharing that's only available sometimes, and a sharing option in file properties that kinda randomly makes itself available, when it feels like it I guess. This is nuts, I'd rather be using windows 98 right now. I have no consistancy in the ability to share or access other computers on a network, regardless of OS. I'm seriously concidering going back to an older machine that can run XP. I can't even install it on my Dell XPS. Yeah, I tried. I HATE WINDOWS features 7 AS MUCH AS VISTA. Ive fallen so far behind in my work due to these useless and complex sharing features and rights issues. Seriously, I can't afford to struggle with it anymore.

 

[RAMWolff]

Yea, it's a bit to understand. I like Windows 7 except for this very annoying issue with exe icon files and folders refresh. Seems really odd to me that others are not having an issue. It's not a video card issue either (as in drawing and refresh) I have a rather good video card: NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT with, I think, 500 Mb's of DDR2 on board..... I think it's more but not sure where to look for that info. Some things "computer" I'm very good with but sometimes I'm a total retard when it comes to finding certain bits of info, like how much DDR2 my video card has on board. I can tell you just about everything else about it but that and what version of OpenGL it's got on board!

 

[McSeven]

Is your disk running low on space? Defrag that puppy.

 

[RAMWolff]

Me? LOL, no, plenty of space and well I did JUST install Win7 a few weeks ago, I think the disk is fine and not quite needing a defrag quite yet. As mentioned this issue persisted back when I ran Vista as well and I've defragged quite a few times when running that for over a year...