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Why is Windows 8 File explorer so slow?

Hi
I have just upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 8,. My hardware requirements far exceed the minimum expectations.
Dual Xeon processors 2.6GHZ, 12GB RAM, 1GB ASUS hardware accelerated GTZ550 Ti graphics card. Dual hard drive running 7200RPM. I am running Windows 8 Pro 64 bit. I performed an upgrade from windows 7
I have been using Windows 8 and I am enjoying using it. 

Issue
My big issue that I am having is the slowness of file explorer, or whenever there is an "open file" dialog window presented.
The windows latency while it builds/shows a file list is extremely slow. I didnt have this issue on windows 7. I am presuming this has something to do with the new File explorer?

Example, if I do windows key + E - file explorer appears 
If its on say the desktop, no problem. If I go to my picture library where I have a lot of sub folders with images the list slowly builds and green progress bar slowly increments.
To compound the problem, if I close the window and do the exact same thing again, the problem returns. It appears going through the pain of building the list is not cached. As you can imagine this is frustrating.


Things Ive tried:
Reducing the file list columns = no better, stil slow
Disabling Windows Defender = no better, still slow
Closing all open apps = no better, still slow

Any help or assistance on this matter would be greatly appreciated

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In shares time is required to spin up drives, I know that and wait in this case. Is it not your case?


No, because if that were the case, then the files would take the same amount of time to display in Details view, which is not the case, they're the speed you would expect them to be (i.e. near local speed). Besides, they reside on a file server, and the drives don't exactly spin down due to the various roles it's playing.

 

OK, I just tried it again, and it seems to now be share specific. One particular share is seriously slow in anything but Details view, but all other shares seem to be really snappy. Accessing shares on other computers is also snappy too, which is rather strange. The only difference is, the share that's causing all my problems also happens to be the one where I store all my downloaded applications/patches/drivers/etc. How odd.

 

Edit: I just ran Process Monitor to see what File Explorer is doing, and you can see noticeable pauses as it loads the files within the folder. It seems to stall a number of times when enumerating executables in the folder, some of them for quite length delays (8.5 seconds was the longest, and that's the setup file for Skype v6.0.0.120).

 

Most executable files are done relatively quickly, but there's 8 executables out of 31 (Not sure if the 9 msi files are included) that take half a second or more (Total: ~19.5-25 seconds) which roughly corresponds to the delay I'm seeing. When I refresh the folder, the delay is still there, and the same 8 files appear in the filtered list (Sometimes a few extras that reach the 0.5 second threshold, but the core files that exceed it are always there).

I can access the same folder on a Windows 7 machine and the files appear straight away with no noticeable delay when scrolling either.

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Hello,

I have the exact same problem - furthermore, most of the system (applications, internet access, etc) has become painfully slow. I don't think it is anything with my system; I have an HP Elitebook 8740w, i7 processor, 16 GB Ram, 500 Gb HD and nvidia Quadro display card. All drivers are updated, and yet the system is slow like a bad year.

I had no issues in this regard with Windows 7; I have become extremely tired of Windows 8 and severely regretted that I upgraded in the first place. I have decided to clean the system and re-install Windows 7; hopefully Windows 8 will be updated so these issues can be resolved. Otherwise I will probably never try it again.

Hope that everyone here will find solutions to their problems.

Best regards.

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In windows 7 we sometimes had to wait when right-clicking in File Explorer window, the only issue to my mind

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By chance have you renamed or retired any servers recently? If so, the presence of the missing server names in the registry is probably what is causing the problem.

Open RegEdit and navigate to...

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MountPoints2

If you see any now invalid mount points under that node, go ahead and delete them. The delay seems to be due to a network search for the missing servers.


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By chance have you renamed or retired any servers recently? If so, the presence of the missing server names in the registry is probably what is causing the problem.


Nope. I had this happen on freshly installed computer.

 

I had a look inside that registry key anyway, and there's essentially only GUIDs in there, so nothing really stands out.

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I unpinned Libraries from the taskbar, 
closed all windows,
pressed windows+e (opened up fileexplorer), 
then pinned it again.

Perhaps we don't have the same problem but maybe someone else has.
(Libraries were loading slowly and I couldn't get the menu on the left-side going either...)

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Got this solution that worked from another site
"Drill down to the folder then right-click on it and click the Customize tab and make sure the default setting of "General Items" is set. If already set to General, try one of the other settings."

http://www.sevenforums.com/performance-maintenance/35758-explorer-slow-sort-folders-files.html

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The problem is check you antivirus software , in early I faced same problem but now every things have been solved after Uninstall my anti virus and reinstall with the help they mentioned in their ( Anti virus developers) guide line, surely it will help.

 

Thanks

Muralee.

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The problem is check you antivirus software , in early I faced same problem but now every things have been solved after Uninstall my anti virus and reinstall with the help they mentioned in their ( Anti virus developers) guide line, surely it will help.

 

Thanks

Muralee.

Please read above. The issue remained with defender disabled, that means there was no antivirus software. And with only one drive (SSD), and with all other settings.
Just don't suggest to disable indexing, we have the right to have at least some folders indexed.

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Hi,

I've tried all solutions proposed here; to no avail. I have never experienced such a downright disastruous system as Windows 8, and I have made a clear decision: I will abandon Windows 8 completely and go back to Windows 7 - I never had all those issues there. Big mistake to upgrade to Windows 8.

Best regards, 

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Question Info

Last updated September 29, 2021 Views 42,235 Applies to: