Waiting on Windows Explorer

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Waiting on Windows Explorer
I click on the computer folder to my web site, up pops this flashlight, I then wait for it to open, or correctly, I go do something else while the computer is working.

I am curious, what is happening, is this a parse, I am sure something indexing is happening?

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Panajachel Guatemala
Lago Atitlan - Lake Atitlan
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Andy of HoboTraveler.com --- Free Hotel Webpage
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I made the flashlight (Torch for the British readers) graphic huge, however this is what I see, this flashlight waving back and forth and I get to wait.

In brief, I think this is why the internet is sometimes slow, this process is happening on some remote server or host on the other side of the planet and we are waiting. I am always amazed that Google.com can do something similar at what to me is the speed of light.

Somewhere in this query lies the explanation to speed, I added another 2 Gigs of RAM to my computer hoping to make that flashlight disappears, however, this was not a good investment, no substantial gain was made.

I am positive my brain is faster than a computer, however, a computer never forgets, the retrieval process always works. The world is being indexed, categorized, labeled and served up to the minds of men, thereby negating any need to try to remember. I focus on retrieval of information quickly, not the remembering.

There must be some great minds out there in computer never never land who work continuously to put that flashlight away.

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Reader Submitted Comments | Deleted Comments (0)

DivaD said on Thursday April 10th, 2008 04:02:00 AM

Hey Andy,When last have you defragmented your hard disk? Also freeing up some HD space might help with this issue.Kind regards,David

Andy HoboTraveler.com said on Thursday April 10th, 2008 05:06:00 AM

Yes this is correct, I am thinking about trying to free up some hardrive space.The site is about 4 Gig, over 100,000 files, and about 25,000 photos.It opens in Frontpage, but Dreamweaer brings the thing to a stop.I have partitioned the site into various folders, but to search all the files is sometimes needed. I use a program called Free Commander to sometimes search faster than Windows Explorer.However, this is also a site, we are not dealing with slow parsing or whatever this is called. I am sort of intrigued as to what the true Host Techs call this proces of searching, when I know what is technically happening, then I can search for clear solutions.The 100,000 files in the root is perplexing as will probably put parts into different designatet servers.

ash said on Thursday April 10th, 2008 09:49:00 AM

I normally only see the flashlight if I've clicked on a shortcut to an item I've moved since I made the shortcut. Windows Explorer then searches all files to find out if it's somewhere else or just deleted. Which, I believe, means that windows' previous search-index has proven to be out of date, so it builds a new one. Re-searches the whole hard disk, and builds up a new index for you.

Rob said on Thursday April 10th, 2008 10:40:00 AM

Andy, when you see a list of files in explorer, each one can have a different icon, all those icons are embedded inside the file itself or there is a system wide one held somewhere, the computer has to go through and grab them all index them and display them, this is especially bad for pictures because it will often make a little thumbnail. Even if you don't use a thumbnail type view in explorer if you have the preview pane on the side it may still do this, and if you have subdirectories it may well go down and grab the bitmaps for those as well. All that is hitting the disk and so it slows things down. A defrag would probably help as it would reduce the amount of time the hard drive spends seeking, speeding up the entire process.

Bobby said on Thursday April 10th, 2008 06:40:00 PM

Andy,I have this same problem and there is nothing that can be done. I have a folder with over 20,000 files in it and it is slow as well.The problem is windows has to read every file name and display it on the screen. When you have over 100,000 files it takes time to read the hard disk, index them, and then finally display them with all the icons. I'm afraid you are stuck on that one. Hope this helps.

Andy HoboTraveler.com said on Friday April 11th, 2008 06:19:00 AM

I am trying to deactivate the Icons so it loads with no Icons.