Windows folder listing takes too damn long

[Sirotnikov]

I have lots of directories with multimedia files (mp3s, videos, etc).

Every time i go in such folder, the explorer bogs down, since it re-reads the metadata for all those (sometimes very big) files.

It also starts presenting tones of unnecesary columns like "artist" "length" "album title" and what not. when I try and make those disappear, they always come back.


This is really annoying!
The least windows could do is hash this information somewhere, so it wouldn't get freaking re-read each time I go back to the directory.

How can I stop windows from reading that info?

[VetLegion]

Set your folder view to "classic", set listing to "details" and turn off thumbnails caching.

[Sirotnikov]

I am already doing everything you said.
It is the "Details" setting that keeps reading meta-data off of music and video files

i did change a setting called "use simple folder view" which seems to be helping

even though some meta-data appears.

[VetLegion]

I get no meta data

Make sure your folder view looks something like this:

[VetLegion]

Even the columns with the date of file creation and filename are metadata (data about data). You can't get rid of metadata completely. But if you turn off all the advanced views you should see only a simple listing of files.

[Verto]

/me double checks VetLegion's screenshot for "Shemale Vids" files.

[VetLegion]

That's the documentaries folder. I wasn't born yesterday to show all my real video collection

[Proteus_MST]

I don´t know how many files your media folders contain, but maybe you should split the folders fuirther into subfolders thereby minimizing the number of files windows will have to check upon opening the folder.

[Sirotnikov]

basically i have media files almost in every folder.

i have many of them on my desktop, in most of my directories, in the d:\ root dir.

this means slow operating times.

and lols @ verto and vetlegion

[Sirotnikov]

I found a half solution.

I put only the columns that I wanted in the details view, and then in the folder options I chose to make all folders behave LIKE THIS FOLDER.

Seems to have helped

[VetLegion]

Cool.

If you still don't like it you can download one of the alternative file managers. Norton Commander used to be great, but I bet there are also free ones available nowadays.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Proteus_MST
I don´t know how many files your media folders contain, but maybe you should split the folders fuirther into subfolders thereby minimizing the number of files windows will have to check upon opening the folder.

I sometimes work with importing documents into databases where there are maybe 20,000 files in a folder, and it can take ages for explorer to respond. Where possible subfolders always help to make files more manageable.