Guest philaphan80@yahoo.com Posted July 7, 2007 Posted July 7, 2007 Does anyone know of a way to disable the rendering of custom icons within Windows Explorer? I'm talking about the step that occurs *after* Windows Explorer builds its list of files and places those little generic placeholder icons resembling documents with a Windows flag. I'm currently working within folders that contain literally thousands upon thousands of documents. Our network is fast enough to build the list almost instantaneously, but the custom icon rendering takes over and freezes the Explorer window until the entire page's icons are displayed. For example, the generic Windows flag document icons are replaced with Internet Explorer icons when HTML files are displayed in the list. (Scroll, wait... page down, wait... etc.) I understand that a possible solution may involve the registry and a system-wide change, therefore, making it non-ideal. But in this instance, I'd prefer to depend on file extensions if the handoff is a faster scrolling list. Thanks in advance!
Guest Kelly Posted July 7, 2007 Posted July 7, 2007 Re: Disable Rendering of Windows Explorer Icons? Have you tried increasing the icon cache? Added info: To clear and reset icon cache: Right click the Desktop/Properties/Appearance/Advanced. Use the item drop box and choose Icon. Change the pixel number by one. Ok your way out. Increase Icon Cache (Line 121) http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm Correct/Repair the Icon View (Line 4) http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm Tip: Add Icon Cache Size to Folder Options/View (Line 166) http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm -- All the Best, Kelly (MS-MVP/DTS&XP) Taskbar Repair Tool Plus! http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/taskbarplus!.htm <philaphan80@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:1183777759.787308.134410@g13g2000hsf.googlegroups.com... > Does anyone know of a way to disable the rendering of custom icons > within Windows Explorer? > > I'm talking about the step that occurs *after* Windows Explorer builds > its list of files and places those little generic placeholder icons > resembling documents with a Windows flag. > > I'm currently working within folders that contain literally thousands > upon thousands of documents. Our network is fast enough to build the > list almost instantaneously, but the custom icon rendering takes over > and freezes the Explorer window until the entire page's icons are > displayed. For example, the generic Windows flag document icons are > replaced with Internet Explorer icons when HTML files are displayed in > the list. (Scroll, wait... page down, wait... etc.) > > I understand that a possible solution may involve the registry and a > system-wide change, therefore, making it non-ideal. But in this > instance, I'd prefer to depend on file extensions if the handoff is a > faster scrolling list. > > Thanks in advance! >
Guest philaphan80@yahoo.com Posted July 11, 2007 Posted July 11, 2007 Re: Disable Rendering of Windows Explorer Icons? Hi, Kelly. Thanks for your reply. I tried increasing the icon cache -- even beyond the high limit set by the batch file -- with no luck. It seems to have worked on the medium- sized (read: still large) folders, but the super huge ones still load sloooooowly. I guess I was hoping someone would pop on and offer something along the lines of..... "go into the registry, HKEY_something_or_other, and change key InsertNameHere's value from 1 to 0". I kinda assumed Microsoft would have a way to do this quickly and easily to either (a) disable loading of custom file type icons or (b) disable drawing of icons altogether (i.e. list file names only). I'm still very eager to find a solution to this problem! So if anyone else has any ideas, I'm all ears. On a side note, keep up the good work on your site! I've linked to it through various search engines over the years while troubleshooting and it's always been informative and helpful. I'm honored to have a Net celebrity field my question. ;)
Guest dobey Posted July 12, 2007 Posted July 12, 2007 Re: Disable Rendering of Windows Explorer Icons? What kind of files are they? With pictures and movies, XP will list things like dimensions and running time by default. This slows down the file listings quite noticeably. <philaphan80@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:1184186499.693704.17400@w3g2000hsg.googlegroups.com... > Hi, Kelly. Thanks for your reply. > > I tried increasing the icon cache -- even beyond the high limit set by > the batch file -- with no luck. It seems to have worked on the medium- > sized (read: still large) folders, but the super huge ones still load > sloooooowly. > > I guess I was hoping someone would pop on and offer something along > the lines of..... "go into the registry, HKEY_something_or_other, and > change key InsertNameHere's value from 1 to 0". I kinda assumed > Microsoft would have a way to do this quickly and easily to either (a) > disable loading of custom file type icons or (b) disable drawing of > icons altogether (i.e. list file names only). > > I'm still very eager to find a solution to this problem! So if anyone > else has any ideas, I'm all ears. > > On a side note, keep up the good work on your site! I've linked to it > through various search engines over the years while troubleshooting > and it's always been informative and helpful. I'm honored to have a > Net celebrity field my question. ;) >
Guest philaphan80@yahoo.com Posted July 12, 2007 Posted July 12, 2007 Re: Disable Rendering of Windows Explorer Icons? They're HTML files (with an .html extension). Just after I posted my last reply, your idea hit me as well. (Good idea!) Even though I'm currently testing in "List" view (no details), it makes sense that the system might still pull information behind the scenes to pre-populate certain fields. So at this point, I guess I can rule out the icons as the issue. Apparently, whatever is slowing the system down is happening *before* the icons are drawn. (Sorry for the confusion, Kelly!) As a shot in the dark, I also tried unchecking the "Display file size information in folder tips" and "Show pop-up description for folder and desktop items" checkboxes within the Folder Options. No dice. The list still comes to a halt while scrolling. I guess the next logical question is..... is there a way to disable loading of extra attributes (even in List view)? In other words, simply load *only* the file names and nothing else. -- OR -- Does anyone know of any third-party software that mimics Windows Explorer 99% with the exception of loading the extra file information? (Perhaps an option that can be enabled or disabled at will.)
Guest philaphan80@yahoo.com Posted July 13, 2007 Posted July 13, 2007 Re: Disable Rendering of Windows Explorer Icons? Okay, how's this for confusing........ I just ran some tests on my home machine (also XP, much more cpu & ram than work machine) and I was able to reproduce the problem by creating 13,000 files within a folder and browsing to it. The List view scrolled a tad bit quicker (I suspect due to faster machine) but still crawled. A co-worker mentioned that this started when they upgraded from Win 2000 to XP. So I fired up my Win 2000 Virtual PC image and -- lo and behold -- it worked just fine. It was faster even though it was communicating through my router! (By default, Virtual PC uses a network connection to send and receive information from the host machine.) So the issue is apparently specific to XP users. I'm assuming a logic change was made to explorer.exe between 2000 and XP. (Can anyone with a final release version of Vista chime in with their results?) Anyway, I started playing around before shutting down for the night and I found something interesting. Apparently, the problem only exists within the List and Details views, because switching to the Tiles or Icons views fixed the issue completely! I was able to scroll lickety-split through 13,000 files the same way I could in Win 2000. (For those keeping score... yes, I made sure to reload Explorer and page down once or twice to make sure the problem resurfaced before switching views.) This most likely confirms dobey's hunch that the problem lies in background population, not the icon drawing. Unfortunately, I couldn't seem to find any documentation on this during my exhaustive search. Does this new input, perhaps, give anyone any new leads? In the meantime, I'm going to bed. lol
Guest Smirnoff Posted July 13, 2007 Posted July 13, 2007 Re: Disable Rendering of Windows Explorer Icons? <philaphan80@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:1184272690.329425.181600@n2g2000hse.googlegroups.com... > They're HTML files (with an .html extension). > > Just after I posted my last reply, your idea hit me as well. (Good > idea!) Even though I'm currently testing in "List" view (no details), > it makes sense that the system might still pull information behind the > scenes to pre-populate certain fields. So at this point, I guess I > can rule out the icons as the issue. Apparently, whatever is slowing > the system down is happening *before* the icons are drawn. (Sorry for > the confusion, Kelly!) > > As a shot in the dark, I also tried unchecking the "Display file size > information in folder tips" and "Show pop-up description for folder > and desktop items" checkboxes within the Folder Options. No dice. > The list still comes to a halt while scrolling. > > I guess the next logical question is..... is there a way to disable > loading of extra attributes (even in List view)? In other words, > simply load *only* the file names and nothing else. -- OR -- Does > anyone know of any third-party software that mimics Windows Explorer > 99% with the exception of loading the extra file information? > (Perhaps an option that can be enabled or disabled at will.) Please include some relevant details of the Original Post and other peoples' replies when you post. Clicking on a message and seeing a standalone post, with no previous details is a pain
Guest philaphan80@yahoo.com Posted July 13, 2007 Posted July 13, 2007 Re: Disable Rendering of Windows Explorer Icons? My apologies. I'm not sure I understand what you mean. I use Google Groups to post messages, if that matters. (??) I simply click the Reply button and post my message.
Guest philaphan80@yahoo.com Posted July 23, 2007 Posted July 23, 2007 Re: Disable Rendering of Windows Explorer Icons? Still trying to troubleshoot this issue. Everyone's input has been helpful so far -- thanks! I'm hoping someone else will have some new ideas. Here's what I have to date: Problem: When browsing a network folder with a large amount of files (in this case, over 13,000) within Windows Explorer on Windows XP, a page down operation (or mouse click or scroll) causes explorer to hang while loading some kind of background information. * First assumed it was the icons, because they're the last thing to be drawn. Increased the icon cache with no luck. Later determined it to be whatever operation is taking place before the icons are drawn. (File attributes, perhaps?) * Problem is apparently limited to XP. (Windows 2000 test within Virtual PC was flawless. Not tested within 2003 or Vista.) * List or Details view apparently causes slowdown. Once view is changed to Tiles or Icons, slowdown disappears. Icons still draw slowly (assuming background information is still populating slowly) but Explorer allows me to scroll lightning fast through list without hanging. * Looking for a better workaround or solution. Ideal solution would be information leading to a hotfix that fixes the above issue. (List and Details view would be allowed to scroll as fast as Tiles and Icons view without causing explorer to hang.) Acceptable workaround would be some way to disable background loading of file attributes, either via hotfix, registry tweak or both. Any clues? Thanks!
Guest Kelly Posted July 23, 2007 Posted July 23, 2007 Re: Disable Rendering of Windows Explorer Icons? Hi, Run line 157: http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm -- All the Best, Kelly (MS-MVP/DTS&XP) Taskbar Repair Tool Plus! http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/taskbarplus!.htm <philaphan80@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:1185202707.019990.284720@w3g2000hsg.googlegroups.com... > Still trying to troubleshoot this issue. Everyone's input has been > helpful so far -- thanks! I'm hoping someone else will have some new > ideas. > > Here's what I have to date: > > Problem: When browsing a network folder with a large amount of files > (in this case, over 13,000) within Windows Explorer on Windows XP, a > page down operation (or mouse click or scroll) causes explorer to hang > while loading some kind of background information. > > * First assumed it was the icons, because they're the last thing to be > drawn. Increased the icon cache with no luck. Later determined it to > be whatever operation is taking place before the icons are drawn. > (File attributes, perhaps?) > > * Problem is apparently limited to XP. (Windows 2000 test within > Virtual PC was flawless. Not tested within 2003 or Vista.) > > * List or Details view apparently causes slowdown. Once view is > changed to Tiles or Icons, slowdown disappears. Icons still draw > slowly (assuming background information is still populating slowly) > but Explorer allows me to scroll lightning fast through list without > hanging. > > * Looking for a better workaround or solution. Ideal solution would > be information leading to a hotfix that fixes the above issue. (List > and Details view would be allowed to scroll as fast as Tiles and Icons > view without causing explorer to hang.) Acceptable workaround would > be some way to disable background loading of file attributes, either > via hotfix, registry tweak or both. > > Any clues? Thanks! >
Guest philaphan80@yahoo.com Posted July 30, 2007 Posted July 30, 2007 Re: Disable Rendering of Windows Explorer Icons? Hi, Kelly. I tried line 157 and, though it forced Explorer to stop refreshing itself, it unfortunately didn't help the issue at hand. FYI to all -- I found the following in several newsgroups. I applied the fix to my home machine (XP) and rebooted, but it made no difference when browsing locally. The folder still took forever to scroll through. I don't have a second machine to connect to my home network, so I'm unable to test if it makes a difference in a server/ client situation. My hunch is that it wouldn't matter anyway since the problem still exists locally. Please correct me if I'm wrong. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer \Parameters Value Name: SizReqBuf Data Type : REG_DWORD Data : 65535 (decimal, FFFF hexadecimal) The SizReqBuf fix actually made sense, so I'm a bit disappointed that it didn't work. I'm open to more suggestions.
Guest philaphan80@yahoo.com Posted August 13, 2007 Posted August 13, 2007 Re: Disable Rendering of Windows Explorer Icons? Recap with new information..... Problem: Page down and scrolling operations within Windows Explorer on Windows XP cause Explorer to hang while browsing network folders with large amounts of files (in this case, over 13,000). Environment: Windows XP Pro SP2 on a large (work) network which is otherwise very fast, if not instant. * First assumed the root problem was icon rendering since it took so long to draw them. * Increased the icon cache with no luck. Later determined it to be whatever operation is taking place before the icons are drawn. (Background loading of file properties, perhaps?) * Discovered that List or Details views cause slowdown. Once view is changed to Tiles or Icons, slowdown disappears. (The icons still draw slowly, but Explorer allows me to scroll lightning fast through list without hanging.) * Tried disabling task pane in Explorer (Tools > Folder Options > General > Use Windows classic folders). Figured maybe *it* was loading the background information. No change. * Tried replicating environment at home (Windows XP Pro SP2) by creating a folder with 13,000 files within it (all 0 bytes). Experienced similar problem at home when browsing locally. * Tested "remote" browsing by using Windows Explorer on both Windows 2000 and Windows Vista RC1 within Virtual PC 2007 environments. HTML mockup folder scrolled flawlessly on both. Tested all possible views. * Tried increasing the "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet \Services\LanmanServer \Parameters\SizReqBuf" registry key to 65535 on home machine. Rebooted. No change when browsing locally. * Expanded test environment at home by creating multiple folders, each with 13,000 files within them (still all 0 bytes). Split folders up by file type to test theory that particular file types cause more slowdown than others. File types tested: ai, asp, aspx, asx, avi, doc, docx, exe, gif, htm, html, jpg, jsp, mdb, mov, mp3, mpg, pdf, php, png, ppt, psd, rar, rtf, shtml, stm, tif, txt, wav, wmv, xls, xlsx, xml, zip. Test results below. Notably slow file types (all others scrolled very fast): Windows XP Pro SP2 (home) -- exe (very slow), htm, html, xml, zip Windows 2000 Pro (VPC) -- no slowdowns Windows Vista RC 1 (VPC) -- exe (very slow) Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition (VPC) -- exe (very slow), zip (very slow) * Problem is apparently limited to particular file types, especially within XP. Something special must be loading in the background for exe, htm, html, xml and zip files which causes XP to slow to a crawl for a few seconds *per file*. 2000 worked like a champ and Vista seems to have mostly corrected the issue. So now my question is... what's wrong with XP?!? Why does it experience this slowdown more than any other Windows OS I've tested so far? Has anyone experienced this same issue and, if so, found a solution? Any registry hacks to stop loading any extra information in the background? (I'd rather skip the extra info. in order to make Explorer scroll and hotkey faster.) Any hotfixes that sound familiar? Any third-party software which acts 99% like Explorer without the extra overhead? As always, thanks in advance.
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