Listing of files in folder is SLOW !!

[fred615]

I'm running XP Pro SP2 (current updates) on an Intel Core2 2.66 CPU with 1 gb of memory. The problem folders are any with PHOTO files in them. In particular, I have many folders with up to 200 photos in them and on my old 1 Ghz machine the file list would populate in a few seconds and I could immediately ask for thumbnails and get them all within a 3-5 seconds.

On this machine, after clicking on the folder, the photo files show up quickly but the little icon in front of each file, has a small part that changes from hollow to a dark fill color. I can watch the color change proceed down the page at a slow pace, about 1 icon per second. On my old machine the icons in the entire 200 file folder would change within a few seconds.

I've found that when I wait for all the icons to change, I can then get thumbnails pretty quickly, about the same as on the old machine. But if I click on thumbnails before all icons have changed then I have to wait for the thumbnails until all icons have changed over. If I leave that directory and come back to it in a few minutes there is no problem, everything is fast as it should be. But If I turn off the PC and boot up later, then I have to wait for those icons to change (register?) again..

I'm thinking that this might be a switch someplace that is set different from what was on my old PC but then again, maybe it is due to all the new hardware in this new PC (motherboard, one of the harddrives, a DVD-RW,  etc.). I'll welcome any ideas on this as it is a VERY frustrating issue when I need to work on my photos.
 

[unlovedwarrior]

have you tried to defrag your computer

[fred615]

Yes, I defrag a couple of times every month as well as run two different anti-Spyware programs. I also just switched from McAfee AV to AVAST based upon hearing that McAfee is known to slow down systems due to its massive overhead. No improvement with these photo folders.

[patio]

Turn off thumbnail view in Explorer...

[fred615]

Thumbnails weren't the issue. It was waiting for the "detailed" listing of all the files to get "registered" or whatever was happening to the files as the little icons changed color.

A contributor on another forum gave me the answer just minutes ago.
For those who may have the same problem in the future, here is the answer I got..

"Photoshop inserts a new function having to do with creating thumbnails of images that it is associated with. If you right click on a jpg or tif or similar and select Properties, you will see a tab called Photoshop Image. All you have to do is to uncheck the Generate Thumbnails box and this won't happen again for any of the filetypes that Photoshop is associate with."

And as soon as I unchecked the Generate Thumbnails box on ONE photo file, my entire photo library now responds instantly...     Yahooo!!   Back in business..