I don't like to wait

[Andy Sjostrom]

Here's an off-topic rant that I have been thinking of writing but have never really come around to do it. But now I have had it. I just have to put this in writing.<br /><br />&lt;rant><br />Why does an excellent operating system like Windows 2000 need more than fifteen seconds to open up a window with folders and files, or to create a new folder? I am referring to the shared Open system component, for example the File Open dialog box used in almost every Windows application. Try starting Excel and open the File Open dialog box. First, it takes like forever to get it to display the contents of the "Look in" drop down list. Then, if I navigate to the folder that I am looking for and want to create a subfolder, it takes another "for ever" to do that. If I do the same thing again, directly following the first time then it goes a lot faster as if things got cached from the first time. I don't know how many times every day for the last few years I have gotten frustrated over this. (Since the birth of the Common Dialog component in Windows 3.1, I guess!)<br /><br />I realize that it takes time to browse CD-ROM drives, DVD drives and network connections. I realize that the first time I invoke a function such as creating a folder, it might take a little longer than the subsequent times due to the caching occuring. But there are no excuses for a fifteen second execution time. Especially not given the multithreading capabilities of the operating system. It would not be rocket science to have this shared system component do some background work while the application or even operating system launches and is being used, so that when I do want to manage my folders and files, I don't have to waaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit until foooor eveeeeeeeeeeeeerrr!<br />&lt;/rant>

[Andy Sjostrom]

Now, I can just hear some of you typing out:
"Heya Andy,
works over here! What's your problem!?"

Well, good for you, isn't!? :lol:

[pt]

-searching 1 billion web pages on google, 1.2 seconds.
-searching my local drives on a mac or pc, 9 minutes (at least).

i have a feel things are going to be get better real soon.

cheers,
pt

[GF]

Besides the time used for checking the CD, DVD and Network Drive, it also requires to check the user access right. W2K will only display the drive that you have the right to access.

[Inaki C]

Andy,
Windows uses to look for shared resources when looking for files in explorer or the open file box. If for any reason you do not have a certain shared resource available at that time it will take a lot longer to get the list, because Lan Manager tries several times to locate the share. Of course seeking CDs should be optional and it takes a lot to read. Anyway it does not take 15 seconds on a typical machine except if you have the missing shared resources problem. Check this.

[Andy Sjostrom]

Thanks for the tip regarding missing shares.
I move in and out of networks. Sometimes I am at home, sometimes I am in my office, sometimes I am at a client's site. This is not an uncommon scenario for the hundreds of thousands professionals out here. There must be a way for the operating system to figure things out faster than fifteen seconds. I'd still blame the operating system, rather than disconnecting/connecting to shared folders. pt's comment regarding google vs local computer is quite relevant.

However, from the two issues I described, this is the one that I can sort of understand. But the "creating a folder takes for ever"-issue should have been resolved ages ago.

[Bruno]

-searching 1 billion web pages on google, 1.2 seconds.
-searching my local drives on a mac or pc, 9 minutes (at least).

i have a feel things are going to be get better real soon.

cheers,
pt

There is a built in indexing service in Windows 2000. With that activated in the right way your searches on your harddisk should not take more than a couple of seconds. :idea:

[Timothy Rapson]

This is one of the chief reasons I prefer to work with files on my PDA. Windows should not take this long.

A big difference between any PDA and desktop is that the you wait for the desktop, but the PDA waits for you. Isn't that what an "assistant" is supposed to do? I have always assumed that this was because Windows did not caches properly and had to go to the hard disk for too many operations. If it were all done in RAM it would be much faster without any other tricks needed. The desktop should also be working more at securing and cleaning up file locations in the background when I am doing CPU nonintensive tasks like typing this right now.

In Windows 95 my system would go to the hard drive every time I moved the mouse. Now, why is the system using the hard drive for storing mouse locations? Terrible. PDAs have a lot to show desktops.

[Ed Hansberry]

There is just too much going on in Windows 2000 and XP. Windows NT 4, which deals with the same file shares and permissions, is far faster on similar equipment when using Explorer.

[rlobrecht]

There is a built in indexing service in Windows 2000. With that activated in the right way your searches on your harddisk should not take more than a couple of seconds. :idea:

I've noticed this, but wonder if it really does any good. I still have nightmares about FastFind (FindFast?) from Office. That thing would suck 100% of the CPU of any machine it was running one.

[Bruno]

There is a built in indexing service in Windows 2000. With that activated in the right way your searches on your harddisk should not take more than a couple of seconds. :idea:

I've noticed this, but wonder if it really does any good. I still have nightmares about FastFind (FindFast?) from Office. That thing would suck 100% of the CPU of any machine it was running one.

There is a HUGE difference between fastfind in Office and the built in index service in Windows 2000/XP. The index service is very much the same as the index service that is built into IIS. You should try it and se what it can do for you. :wink:

[vetteguy]

The index service does speed things up. How fast is your machine? You do have to make some allowances if your machine is a couple of years old. And the google analogy by pt doesn't really hold, because you're comparing a PC searching files on an IDE hard drive, compared with dozens of servers searching a database loaded entirely in RAM. However, I do agree that that is the way things are headed, as the next major upgrade to Windows may be built on SQL Server.

[/dev/niall]

-searching 1 billion web pages on google, 1.2 seconds.
-searching my local drives on a mac or pc, 9 minutes (at least).


I've been using locate, a tool available with a Cygwin (http://www.cygwin.com) install, to quickly find files. It's probably not suitable for most folks though, since it won't affect response times in windows or drop-downs (you use it from a command prompt), and you have to keep the database up to date (I run updatedb every night). It's nice because I use the same tools on my Linux and Windows machines to find stuff, but it's not for everyone. Very helpful to have 1 second file searches though, and since I spend a lot of my time in a shell anyway I'm right at home.

Have to check out the indexing service. I don't believe I've actually turned mine on.

[Ed Hansberry]

Have to check out the indexing service. I don't believe I've actually turned mine on.
Be careful. It has been known to corrupt data files. Forte's Agent Newsreader is one of the folders you should disable indexing for.

At least Win2K isn't as bad as an XP search. For some infernal reason, XP insists on treating .ZIP files as folders. I have a few hundred archive ZIP files that I have zipped up over the years because I didn't want them searched. Now XP does it anyway. :evil:

[splintercell]

I have a few hundred archive ZIP files that I have zipped up over the years because I didn't want them searched. Now XP does it anyway. :evil:

So just don't index that particular set of folders, it's just a matter of unckecking a box.
As to the original problem, I just throw more hardware at it, and it seems to help. Half a gig (and up) of fast RAM and a speedy system bus do speed things along quite nicely. :wink:

[Sven Johannsen]

as the next major upgrade to Windows may be built on SQL Server.

Next? Give you one guess as to the engine behind Active Directory in W2K :)

[Ed Hansberry]

So just don't index that particular set of folders, it's just a matter of unckecking a box.
Not a matter of indexing. (Sorry Andy - thread hijack :wink: ) I have about 200+ folders/subfolders in My Documents. I archive certian groups of files within that structure. I'd say over 50% of the folders have at least 1 ZIP file in them. Things like Budget 2000.ZIP or Financial Statements 1998.ZIP. I have no need to search or index them. When I search, there is no way to tell XP to ignore ZIP files. :evil:

[splintercell]

When I search, there is no way to tell XP to ignore ZIP files. :evil:

But you can tell it to ignore folders, so if you organized all the zipped files under a specific folder structure, you could exclude it from the searches.

[jdhill]

as the next major upgrade to Windows may be built on SQL Server.

Next? Give you one guess as to the engine behind Active Directory in W2K :)
Actually, the Active Directory was based on the Exchange 5.5 Directory. The Exchange 5.5 Directory is the Extensible Storage Engine (ESE) which is an optimized version of the JET engine from Microsoft Access.

[Ed Hansberry]

But you can tell it to ignore folders, so if you organized all the zipped files under a specific folder structure, you could exclude it from the searches.

But why should I move my 125 zip files to a single folder? I'd have to rename all of them to make sense. For example, I have:

E:\Documents\Financial Data\2001\sales analysis.zip
E:\Documents\Financial Data\2000\sales analysis.zip
E:\Documents\Financial Data\1999\sales analysis.zip

Now I have to rename everything. Insane. .ZIP should be configurable to be turned off. I prefer WinZip to manage my Zip files and I don't want the data searched.
:bad-words:

[splintercell]

But why should I move my 125 zip files to a single folder? I'd have to rename all of them to make sense. For example, I have:

E:\Documents\Financial Data\2001\sales analysis.zip
E:\Documents\Financial Data\2000\sales analysis.zip
E:\Documents\Financial Data\1999\sales analysis.zip

Now I have to rename everything. Insane. .ZIP should be configurable to be turned off. I prefer WinZip to manage my Zip files and I don't want the data searched.
:bad-words:
Why rename or move anything? Just exclude the top-level folder, like Financial Data, assuming nothing else in there needs to be searched. Even then you can selectively put back in certain subfolders under it.

[Jason Dunn]

-searching 1 billion web pages on google, 1.2 seconds.
-searching my local drives on a mac or pc, 9 minutes (at least).

That's because Google uses Linux....hehehe. :lol:

[Mark from Canada]

I do remember utilities back in the Win 95 days that were created to allow more complex file searches with boolean operators and so on to be used in place of the regular search, but I can't find them any more :( .
These tools treat the ZIP files as files, not folders. Anybody out there still know where to get one? Maybe even how to replace the general Windows search with such a tool?
I have heard that you can disable the search in ZIP-files by killing the ZIP as folders features in general, but I don't want to go that far.

[sweetpete]

as the next major upgrade to Windows may be built on SQL Server.

Next? Give you one guess as to the engine behind Active Directory in W2K :)

He's referring to the file system, not the directory service. It has been rumoured that Longhorn or Blackcomb will have the new Yukon SQL server as the basis for the file system.

[Scott R]

I wonder if this is the same problem I've noticed...After booting up for the day, the first time I delete a file on Windows 2000, it takes forever. The next time (or times) I delete any files, it only takes a second.

Scott

[bgracewood]

I guess the tradeoff is between fast booting time and slow first access.
If the OS cached every possible action for every possible user then it would probably take ages to boot.

Someone mentioned that NT4 is faster than 2k for these tasks. If you add NT4's interminable boot time, would the comparison be a little more even?

[tim254]

I've been using FileTracer for several years now and couldn't live without it. It's much faster than the indexing in 2k/XP and doesn't slow your system down at all. I can find any file across my 220GB worth of files in seconds. It also works in the file "open file" dialog boxes. The only improvement I'd like to see added is network drive support and I also wish the author would respond to comments faster. The url is <a href=http://www.filetracer.com>FileTracer.com</a> if you're interested.

[deVBuzz]

Andy,

I did some research a while ago and I found that there are some things you can do to alleviate this situation.

Check out this page:

http://www.practicallynetworked.com/sharing/troubleshoot/slowbrowse02.htm

I tried some of the registry tweaks to stop the searching of shared resources. BUT and you knew it was coming! After hacking away like crazy one day suddenly everything came right and my dual CPU PC started to behave like it should - browsing Windows and creating folders like grease lightning. Happy hunting.

Regards
Derek

[Chris Forsberg]

Two things that slow down your machine:
- Win2K Advanced Server
- Nortin Antivirus File System Realtime protection

The only cure for the first is to reinstall the ordinary Server version (you don't need AS on your laptop). The second could be removed by clicking on the Norton taskbar icon and deselecting "Enable File System Realtime Protection". I do this sometime to increase speed when I work (it's almost impossible to work with file intensive apps like Visual SourceSafe with it turned on).