XP displaying thumbnails terribly slowly

andywatkins1963 · #1 02-14-2004, 07:47 PM

Dear all,

I have just got a new 3ghz Pentium 4 with mega video card, 1 gig memory etc. Runs phenominally fast except for 1 thing. Noticed my Ulead picture programs ran 100 times slower than they used to or hung altogether.

Whilst trying to sort this out in windows explorer I noticed that if you browse a folder with say 50 pictures in it takes a couple of minutes just to display a thumbnail, or even just a tiny icon if you are in "details" or list modes.

This is very wrong, should be almost instantaneous on a mega beast like this.

I can even browse the same directory from another PC on the network running windows 98se very quickly. It just seems to be XP messing it all up.

I HOPE there is a simple setting I can adjust that will stop this. Any bright ideas???

Thanks

Andy Watkins

jmatt · #2 02-15-2004, 06:34 AM

Simple Tweaks and Options for Windows XP
http://www.subvers.com/technobabble/...ks/access0.htm

Refer in above link > Do not cache thumbnails" for quicker thumbnail display

andywatkins1963 · #3 02-15-2004, 10:28 AM

Thanks for the advice, I have followed their advice but I had much of that already....

This is something strange conflicting.... In Uleade photo explorer 8, what it does is this.....

Little generic jpeg icon for each picture is displayed at the rate of about 1 per second from top to bottom.

THEN

It puts a tiny thumbnail in each picture from bottom to top this time....

THEN

From top to bottom it clears the tiny thumbnail and replaces them with the small generic jpeg icon it has just replaced!

THEN

From bottom to top it once again replaces all the icons with tiny thumbnails....

THEN

It waits for a couple of seconds and displays all the proper large thumbnails it shoudl have displayed.

Every single time above it replaces anything it is at the rate of about 1 pic per second, so as you can imagine a screen that should take 1 second to display, and takes <2 seconds to display on my OLD computer, is taking about 3-5 MINUTES to display on my new machine.

If during the process you try to click on anything at all the whole application hangs....

This isn't just a bit slow for caching this is hopelessly messed up, can't work out what it is, but I think it is the operating system, windows explorer itself does something fairly similar....

All help greatly appreciated, anyone else ever seen anything like this???

Andy Watkins

PhilAdams · #4 02-16-2004, 07:24 AM

Andy - sorry, no solution, but I have the same problem in Explorer - VERY frustrating, so if anybody does know the answer we'd both be very grateful!

Oddly, other file browsers (e.g. Canon ExBrowser) DON'T suffer the problem, but Win Explorer has become unusable for photos.

It wasn't always so on my PC, and I have a suspicion that it got screwed after installing Adobe Photoshop 7 - but I couldn't swear to it.

I have tried deleteing the XP thumbnail caches, in the hope that when they're re-created the problem would dispappear, but no such luck.

Does anyone know what's going on?

andywatkins1963 · #5 02-17-2004, 03:46 PM

Phil,

Sounds like you have exactly the same problem as me, and interestingly I also have photoshop 7....

Maybe I will uninstall photoshop to see what happens??

Andy

andywatkins1963 · #6 02-17-2004, 04:20 PM

Phil,

I have fixed it!!

I checked in windows at the file extensions, the jpg extensions were linked to to omnipage ocr software from a canoscan scanner I bought. This wasn't right so I deleted them.

Everything works fine now including windows explorer.

Try it and let me know how it goes for you.

Andy Watkins

PhilAdams · #7 02-17-2004, 07:08 PM

Andy

Thanks for that! Not quite fixed, but better...

My jpg File Association was to Photoshop (though, interestingly, I also have a Canon Scanner, and the problem dates to near when that went on too!)

I've change the F.A. to 'MS Photo Editor', and now there's a bit of a pause (maybe 10-20 secs for a folder full), but if I then delete the Thumbs.db file and generate a new one, it's now back to normal.

Only tried this on a few folders so far, need to re-boot and see if it stays better...

...but it's far too late now - need to delete the thumbs.db file in over 70 folders of photos!!

I'll let you know how it goes in the next week!

I'd still be interested if anyone knows what the dickens is going on though!

Cheers for now.

Phil Adams

andywatkins1963 · #8 02-18-2004, 03:41 AM

[quote]Originally posted by PhilAdams
[b]Andy

Thanks for that! Not quite fixed, but better...

My jpg File Association was to Photoshop (though, interestingly, I also have a Canon Scanner, and the problem dates to near when that went on too!)

Phil,

I just changed mine back to photoshop and it is all messed up again! you basically just have to delete the jpg file association. Who cares I can live with that, it's mildly annoying but doesn't stop me using photoshop at all. I look at and load all my pictures from Fotostation 4.5 (excellent product) anyway.

Andy

katprat · #9 02-18-2005, 02:56 PM

Andy,

I just got a new computer last weekend and was having the exact same problem--image folders taking AGES to load thumbnails, as well as Explorer crashing repeatedly when trying to view these folders. I too upgraded from a slower computer which had absolutely no problems like this. I just found the solution...

Open a folder containing image thumbnails in XP Explorer. Right click on any thumbnail in folder, click on Properties and set "Open with" to Windows Picture & Fax Viewer or other program BESIDES Photoshop. Next, click on the Photoshop Images tab at the top and UNCHECK box "Generate Thumbnails".

Also, make sure the "do not cache thumbnails" box in folder options is UNCHECKED as mentioned in other posts.

Then try this:

Right click the "My Computer" icon on the desktop.
Select properties, then advanced. Under "Performance" select settings.

UNCHECK everything except "Smooth edges of screen fonts" and "Use visual styles on windows and buttons".

You'll probably not see a difference visually but XP will really fly.

I found this info in a post on dpreview.com by Vernon D. Rainwater. HUGE thanks to him for solving this annoying problem. Hope this helps--I know my headache is finally gone!

--Kate

ADproducer · #10 02-24-2005, 08:15 AM

Hey

First - du you have Photoshop on your computer? if so - uninstall and when you install Photoshop again only set Photoshop to open .psd files. I had try to changes in folderoptions and set extension to be open by another program, but the cure was to uninstall.

I had the same problem and now my computer is running very fast.

Best regards

Henrik Christensen
Denmark

andywatkins1963 · #11 02-24-2005, 02:52 PM

Yes I have a full copy of Photoshop 7 installed. And I agree that is causing the problem, though I don't know why!

Problem is I WANT photoshop to open jpg files and if I set that it runs like a dog, so I keep jpg set to default unless I am doing some photo editing etc and then I set it back to photoshop just for the one evening.

It would be nice if some one found a way of keeping jpg's linked to photoshop AND the computer worked...

Andy