Deleting things slow in 2K/XP

[d000hg]

I've noticed on my XP work machine that when things are deleted, the "deleting" dialog is present for up to 30s, even for a single file or empty folder. It looks like it deletes everything, then sort of hangs for a while with the dialog open.

And this goes in the 2K forum because my 2K machine at home seems to be doing the same thing. It's a clean install a few weeks back and originally was very quick, but the same thing seems to have started to a lesser degree.

My home PC is an 800MHz with 384Mb and my work PC a 3GHz with 1GB so for the OSes involved that seems plenty. I wondered if it could be a HDD fragmentation problem but that seems a bit unlikely, no?

[Big Booger]

spyware? Adware? Virus?

Deleting files (depending on how large) can take a few seconds if they are large files.

Have you tried adjusting the recycle bin properties to automatically delete the files instead of moving them to the recycle bin? That might speed it up.

Usually poor performance can be because of a recent software change like a newly installed program, or it can be a malware related issue.

It could also be that your hard disk needs defragged. Try it and see.. seems like the easiest of all to check. Give the hard disk a good defrag, and then see if deleting takes as long.

[d000hg]

These can be very small files like 1Kb. It seems that the "deleting files" dialog just sticks around after finishing for up to 20-30s. I can delete a folder, then while the dialog is still there check from a dos prompt that it's actually gone, and re-create a new folder with the same name without errors! So it must be doing something after the deletion which is tking a long time.

Won't defragging a 100Gb HDD take about a week?

[Big Booger]

Depends on the defrag program used. O&O works well on my 400GB of shit... I think it takes around 2 hours for a deep Space saving defrag.

I never use the built in defrag because it sucks. Did you try the recycle bin suggestion I made in my post above?

What have you done to these systems? Installed any antivirus software recently? Firewall? System utilities? Any special configurations? Any registry "tweaks"? Or are these bone stock systems?

[d000hg]

Well I want the recycle bin to keep files after I delete them. But why would this take time - the file will presumably stay in the same place, but in any case a tiny file can be moved VERY fast.

I only have the Windows defragger, are there free decent ones available for Win2K & WinXP?

Not sure about the install as it's a work PC. There are a few bits and pieces but unless some cruddy software has screwed Windows it shouldn't be a problem along those lines.

[Big Booger]

http://www.thefreecountry.com/utilit...entation.shtml

That site lists some degramentation utes.

here's the older version of O&O that I use:

http://www.oo-software.com/en/products/ood2000free/

[ZedBed]

1

[ZedBed]

I've noticed on my XP work machine that when things are deleted, the "deleting" dialog is present for up to 30s, even for a single file or empty folder. It looks like it deletes everything, then sort of hangs for a while with the dialog open.

I had exaclty the same problem. Right click "my computer" select properties, then the hardware tab and device manager, under "network adapters" I have a network card and something called "1394 Network adapter" which turns out to be the firewire port (for video cameras and the like). I disabled it and hey presto all fixed. I was also having problem using Autocad which wouldn't pan or zoom. That problem is also solved. Hope this works for you.

[mrag]

I had exaclty the same problem. Right click "my computer" select properties, then the hardware tab and device manager, under "network adapters" I have a network card and something called "1394 Network adapter" which turns out to be the firewire port (for video cameras and the like). I disabled it and hey presto all fixed. I was also having problem using Autocad which wouldn't pan or zoom. That problem is also solved. Hope this works for you.

Me too. Exact same 30 second deleting operation for sending stuff to recycle bin. I disabled "1394 Network adapter" and now it's back to normal. No idea why-how would you ever guess it was a firewire port in the first place?

Thanks for the tip. Just in case others follow, I have a local built XP Pro 1GB AMD system and the firewire card was added later. Again many thanks.