Disable background information in Windows Explorer on XP?

August 17, 2007

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.

To Replicate: Create a folder on Windows XP (either locally or on a

network drive) with 13,000 files, each 0 bytes with an ".html"

extension. Browse via Windows Explorer and choose Details or List

view.

* 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 else experienced this same issue and, if so, found a

solution? Any registry hacks to stop loading any extra information in

the background? Any hotfixes that sound familiar? Any third-party

software which acts 99% like Explorer without the extra overhead?

Please note that I'd much rather skip the background info and icon

rendering in order to make Explorer scroll and hotkey faster (just in

case someone knows of a workaround with that caveat attached). I