XP problem's got me scratching my head

[Darkish]

Here's the deal, I've a folder that holds my correspondence to date with about 4500 word documents in it. Recently xp started to act weird with it....

If I "explore" to the folder it opens pretty much instantly as you'd expect, but if I try to do a "save as" from within Word the task manager will show 100% cpu use for about a minute as the hourglass spins before the folder opens. Same if I try to open a document in this folder from Word.

I also get the same behaviour if i try to add an email attachment from within this folder.

I have tried moving all the contents to a new folder but the problem remains - googled it but not much out there.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated, can't get my head round why one way works as normal (exploring to the folder) and "save as" redlines the cpu   

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Could be your antivirus software scanning through the folder contents. I noticed this behaviour with F-secure a few years ago - except it happened also through explorer.

Try uninstalling your AV and see if the problem disappears. Do note that simply turning it off will not be enough. I'd disconnect internet for the test to be sure though.

[hyster]

also 4500 files is a lot of files to have in a single folder. windows has to scan all of them to have them show up.
split them into sub folders IE "2006" / "2007" / "2008" or some think else that's relevent to ur file structure.

[Ghosth]

I agree with Hyster, getting too many files in one spot. Divide it up into smaller folders. Either by subject, date, etc.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

I agree with Hyster, getting too many files in one spot. Divide it up into smaller folders. Either by subject, date, etc.

That will most likely fix the symptoms but not reveal the problem.

[Darkish]

Thanks, disabled av (Kaspersky) - no difference. Regarding the number of files, I thought ntfs could deal with millions. Also have a photo folder with comparable number and it doesn't produce the same odd behaviour.

[hyster]

the more files u have in a folder the more time it takes to read the file info. windows has to find out the file type, size and other bits and peices.

a couple of years back i was writing bat files and i tested 1 that copied a file and renamed it randomly. i ran it for about 5 mins to see what happened.
the origanal file was 3k, it copied it about 800,00 times to a folder. i could not open the folder due to the number of files in it.

i played with diffrent origanal files of various sizes from 1k up to 700mb and the ONLY problem i had was the number of files NOT the file sizes.

id put money on it there is NO problem apart from the number of files.

a way to see this in action is to open a folder with a lot of videos or images in it. how often have u seen the thumbnails show up 1 at a time as windows reads the file info?

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Thanks, disabled av (Kaspersky) - no difference. Regarding the number of files, I thought ntfs could deal with millions. Also have a photo folder with comparable number and it doesn't produce the same odd behaviour.

I haven't used word in years but if it has some kind of 'preview' function that might cause delays as it opens previews from 4000 documents. If there's a setting to disable it that would help.

[gyrene81]

It's the indexing service in Windows...just about every Microsoft product utilizes it for file searches...and every single drive/volume on your system gets indexed, even if it's blank. You didn't also happen enable the quick search function in Outlook did you?

Sounds like your indexing catalog may be messed up a little or overloaded. Try following the suggestions in this article to fine tune the indexing service for performance.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Configure-Windows-Indexing-Service-for-Performance&id=15827

Side note...long file/folder names...large numbers of files in a single folder...large numbers of files in sub-folders under a single folder...sub-folders under sub-folders deeper than 8...all can cause similar behavior as well.

[Fulmar]

It's the indexing service in Windows...just about every Microsoft product utilizes it for file searches...and every single drive/volume on your system gets indexed, even if it's blank. You didn't also happen enable the quick search function in Outlook did you?

Yeah, having indexing enabled on drives with large amounts of files can really hamper performance.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

It's the indexing service in Windows...just about every Microsoft product utilizes it for file searches...and every single drive/volume on your system gets indexed, even if it's blank. You didn't also happen enable the quick search function in Outlook did you?

Sounds like your indexing catalog may be messed up a little or overloaded. Try following the suggestions in this article to fine tune the indexing service for performance.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Configure-Windows-Indexing-Service-for-Performance&id=15827

Side note...long file/folder names...large numbers of files in a single folder...large numbers of files in sub-folders under a single folder...sub-folders under sub-folders deeper than 8...all can cause similar behavior as well.

If it was the indexing it would affect explorer the same. It doesn't.

[BaldEagl]

Try deleting the normal.dot file.  Sometimes if it's corrupt it will cause strange anomolies in Word.

[gyrene81]

If it was the indexing it would affect explorer the same. It doesn't.

You're a genius.




Darkish...open excel or powerpoint then perform a file>save as function and see what happens...if it does the same thing...something is going on with the indexing service...keep in mind that connecting and disconnecting external drives (if you use them), having files on remote file storage and/or changing the contents of a cd/dvd drive will also affect time it takes for the indexing service to scan the drives/volumes. If neither of those applications does the same thing, then try what BaldEagl suggested with the normal.dot file...also check what your default view is (i.e. thumbnails, details, tiles, icons, list, etc...) because that will also affect explorer functionality from within office applications.

If it is the indexing service the performance tweaks mentioned in the link will speed things up for you.

[ozrocker]

Turn off Indexing Service
       <S> Oz