Slow explorer (XP Home)

[TimNott]

I've had this from a reader and I'm stumped....
" a home-built machine based on a 2.4 GHz Athlon with 1 GB RAM running
Windows XP Home.
I do a lot of digital photography and have directories sometimes holding
several hundred jpegs, typically
~ 1.5 - 2 MB each. When I open such a directory in Explorer (I prefer just
to list files), it takes forever to read
the contents - the icons take about half a second each to change to the
default Photoshop icon, and with several hundred
files this can take three or four minutes in total. Meantime, I can do
nothing but sit and wait for this to complete -
Explorer freezes until all icons are updated. I also have a 1 GHz laptop
with 640 MB RAM running Windows
2000 Pro, and these directories open almost instantaneously - the icons
update in milliseconds."

He's tried virus checking, defragging and, at my suggestion, rebuilding the icon cache. And note that he's in list, not thumbnail view? Ring any other bells with anyone?

[cowboydawg]

Did he check for Spyware? Did he check Resources to see if anything was hogging the CPU?

[TimNott]

Good points. I'll pass those on.

[jscher2000]

I'd guess "something" is trying to extract EXIF properties from the files and/or they are being scanned for viruses.

On the first point, if the right pane displays information about files other than the standard file list, trying changing the view to a "classic" Details display rather than a "web page" display. Also, if any shell extensions have been installed that show EXIF on mouseover, that might be doing something. I guess it's also possible that thumbnails are being generated, but every time??

On the second point, if the antivirus software allows exclusion of certain extensions, try excluding .JPG (or whatever they are). Real-time scanning is of questionable value for JPEG files. We did have a thread about how viruses can be injected into and lay dormant in JPEG and other files, but since JPEG files are not executable, they pose little threat sitting in there.

[TimNott]

He's already turned off the virus check for JPG, but the EXIF thing looks a possibility. Thanks.