folder full of exes

[serendipity]

Hi guys,
Lately i have accumulated a folder full of .exe files and it has grown really large. So whenever i go to this folder it takes a lot of time for it to open. I guess there is lot of scanning going on before opening this. Do you know how i can reduce the time for opening thsi folder?
Does zipping help (i guess scanning will also happen inside zipped files)? Or maybe i should hide them, any ideas?

[j_c_hallgren]

Lately i have accumulated a folder full of .exe files and it has grown really large.

What's your definition of "really large"? 200? 400? 1000? My downloads folder has about 230 EXE's, 15 MSI's and 85 or so ZIP's and I can't see any difference in speed (compared to other folders) when I go to it that I can attribute to these file types.

[avsfan]

Do you have an antivirus program running? I had a similar problem, and it turned out that AVG Professional was taking a long time to scan the large .exe files (over 500MB in size) in the directory (and using a lot of memory while doing it). Their recommendation was to add that directory to the list of excludes for the resident shield (not the ideal solution, but it worked). Since that directory is still scanned as part of the file system scan, I decided I could live with it, and only put files into that directory that had been previously scanned (again, not the ideal situation, but I can live with it for now).

I didn't see the problem in Windows Explorer (only in XY), but this workaround worked for me. Perhaps you've got a similar situation? This problem only occurred with large .exe files, and didn't appear to happen with other large files.

I hope this helps!

andy

[serendipity]

Now I see. I have AVG antivirus too, but a free one. It doesnt allow me to exclude a folder from being scanned (because its free). So basically that leaves me with 3 possibilities:

1) Buy a professional Antivirus. (Maybe its time)
2) Switch to another free antivirus. (Any recommendations?)
3) Dont take the delay so seriously.

[mwb1100]

For another few days you can get a free AVG Pro license from ComputerActive magazine:

http://www.computeractive.co.uk/avg/index

[serendipity]

Interesting. Thanks. I wonder whats the catch.

[admin]

Interesting. Thanks. I wonder whats the catch.

Did you try using generic icons? If you are talking about many 10 thousand EXEs, it might be retrieving the icons (each exe has to be openend and read!)...

[serendipity]

Interesting. Thanks. I wonder whats the catch.

Did you try using generic icons? If you are talking about many 10 thousand EXEs, it might be retrieving the icons (each exe has to be openend and read!)...

Good point, I will try using generic icons.

[SkyFrontier]

This page was linked from another page but I think my suggestion fits better here.
-Why not XY take the blacklist approach out of AV and allow users to tell which folders will have generic icons? Then we could keep the benefits of .icos for the entire system while providing room for workarounds in cases like serendipity's.

[nas8e9]

This page was linked from another page but I think my suggestion fits better here.
-Why not XY take the blacklist approach out of AV and allow users to tell which folders will have generic icons? Then we could keep the benefits of .icos for the entire system while providing room for workarounds in cases like serendipity's.

By way of background from the help file:

Note that only the following file types can have specific icons (which typically but not necessarily are embedded icons), so only files of these types will show different icons when you enable the use of generic icons: folders and *.exe *.lnk *.ico *.icl *.cur *.ani *.htm(l) *.url

Unless you're a programmer (XYplorer user no. 1 happens to be one as will a possibly significant number of other users), but still, the file types with the extensions listed above, are probably not of such importance (after all, not created or edited by most users) that you really *need* to see their icons displayed at the cost of speed *if* you happen to use in this regard particularly awkward anti-virus programs *and* have this setting enabled. Surveying \Windows\System32 may be an exception for many, but still, given all these caveats, I can't see this request for something new to be developed, as something worth supporting myself.

(For some reason my use of English seems to be expanding/deteriorating? Must try harder myself, I guess... )

Edited.

[kiku]

I also reported something like this a long time ago (http://www.xyplorer.com/xyfc/viewtopic. ... 717#p26762) and it improved on my personal laptop, but on my work computer I cannot configure the anti-virus and the delay is very noticeable.

What I would like to understand is why XYplorer behaves diferently from WinExplorer to the point that it "alerts" the anti-virus and makes the folder listing so slow.

[admin]

I also reported something like this a long time ago (http://www.xyplorer.com/xyfc/viewtopic. ... 717#p26762) and it improved on my personal laptop, but on my work computer I cannot configure the anti-virus and the delay is very noticeable.

What I would like to understand is why XYplorer behaves diferently from WinExplorer to the point that it "alerts" the anti-virus and makes the folder listing so slow.

Using generic icons makes a difference, right? So it's the icons.

[kiku]

Using generic icons makes a difference, right? So it's the icons.

Yes, definitely the icons and the anti-virus (I cannot change any configuration here):
Use generic icons on, anti-virus on: fast
Use generic icons off, anti-virus on: 1-2 second freeze
Use generic icons on, anti-virus off: super-fast
Use generic icons off, anti-virus off: fast

Windows Explorer displays the icons after listing all the files, so no delay is noticed

[admin]

Using generic icons makes a difference, right? So it's the icons.

Yes, definitely the icons and the anti-virus (I cannot change any configuration here):
Use generic icons on, anti-virus on: fast
Use generic icons off, anti-virus on: 1-2 second freeze
Use generic icons on, anti-virus off: super-fast
Use generic icons off, anti-virus off: fast

Windows Explorer displays the icons after listing all the files, so no delay is noticed

XY does the generic icons first as well, but I don't force-refresh the painting (to save a little time and avoid the flicker) so you normally don't see it. The important difference is (probably) that Explorer gets the icons in a background thread. I could do that as well, but I don't give it that importance.

Why is it slow: To get the specific icon the shell has to access (= open) the file, that's where the virus scanner sets in. The devil knows why this does not affect Explorer. Maybe it is excluded (trusted) by default?

[nas8e9]

Using generic icons makes a difference, right? So it's the icons.

Yes, definitely the icons and the anti-virus (I cannot change any configuration here):
Use generic icons on, anti-virus on: fast
Use generic icons off, anti-virus on: 1-2 second freeze
Use generic icons on, anti-virus off: super-fast
Use generic icons off, anti-virus off: fast

Windows Explorer displays the icons after listing all the files, so no delay is noticed

XY does the generic icons first as well, but I don't force-refresh the painting (to save a little time and avoid the flicker) so you normally don't see it. The important difference is (probably) that Explorer gets the icons in a background thread. I could do that as well, but I don't give it that importance.

Why is it slow: To get the specific icon the shell has to access (= open) the file, that's where the virus scanner sets in. The devil knows why this does not affect Explorer. Maybe it is excluded (trusted) by default?

Not sure it's a complete answer, but does Windows Explorer's thumbnail cache also include file icons? That would complicate testing, of course (deleting the cache requires logoff or restart).

Also, does XYplorer cache file icons?