Fix the damn "Calculating Time Remaining" problem already!

I bought this computer with Vista Business pre-isntalled back in April, and
I'm still wasting huge amounts of my time while I wait for Vista to calculate
the time remaining before even starting to transfer files.

I'm just absolutely flabergasted that this hasn't been dealt with in a patch
or service pack release. I don't want to go out and download/install some
third party software to do something that the OS should do.

Honestly...This is outrageous.

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http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/co...d6b&dg=microsoft.public.windows.vista.general

 

I may be wrong, but it seems to me the transfer is commencing at the
start but the estimated time takes a while after the process has
started before it is active.

 

Are these local copies or network copies?

Lang

 

What on earth is that sentence supposed to mean?

Have you really not noticed that Vista has a major problem in this area?
Luckily it is one of the things that they promise to fix with SP1.

ss.

 

Perhaps I worded it poorly.
The transfer starts immediately and does not wait for the calculations
to finish.
It may appear the transfer has not started, but it has.

--
Jupiter Jones [MVP]
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar
http://www.dts-l.org

 

It still takes ages for the transfer though. Even deleting a load of files
can take a long time. I hope this SP1 fix will bring things back to XP
speeds at least.

ss.

 

The transfer starts immediately but Windows cannot know how long it will
take.

Windows knows, of course, how big the file is, but does not know the
transfer rate. So, Windows starts timing the bytes transferred. After a
representative sample passes, Windows displays the estimated time. Windows
refines this estimate as the download progresses.

 

Maybe this could help:
http://mytechweblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/slow-file-copymove-in-vista-here-is_05.html .

Also if it is network copy try disabling IPv6.

ThePro

 

Yeah, it does appear to be slower copying files under some circumstances.
And yes, I heard that it *may* be addressed in SP1 (Q4 2007).

 

You can click on the More Information (down arrow) to view the actual progress
and speed of the transfer. Some times the "Calculating Time Remaining" remains
while the actual transfer is happening.

 

That is what is suppose to happen and did under XP. Thus the purpose
of the progress bar which is to roughly show the transfer process and
time remaining. Now the knuckleheads in Redmond have so bungled the
file copy/move/delete routine you get the moronic "calculating time
remaining" message which often hangs on the screen, with nothing
apparently happening (is though) then in the last couple seconds the
status bar sometimes zooms left to right, obviously not reflecting
anything but legendary Microsoft stupidity from their inept
programmers.

Two NEW things happen in Vista. It check permissions and I suspect
sniffs for DRM (Digital Rights Management) violations at the behest of
the Hollywood crowd. Add in that it can open an absurd number of
handles to process the task, no wonder it often bogs down. That
something is seriously wrong can be confirmed by moving a few files
totaling 1 GB or so, then trying to copy/move a few hundred files
totally the same amount. Generally it will take MUCH longer in the
second example. This confirms the routine is poorly written and is
wading through needless layers of bloated code.

Two things can help:

1. Apply the hotfix I wrote about months ago. KB 931770
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/931770

There are several web sites you can download it from
without begging Microsoft.

2. Be sure all your non root drives have the right permissions,
which in general means you the user (as you logged in) have
full rights.

My experience and I move 50-80 GB worth of files around daily is this
helps get past the bottleneck. While not always for reasons unknown, I
average between 20-35 MB a second transfers which is on a par with XP.
Without the above two steps the speed was often an absurd 1.5 MB or
less. You can see how fast the files transfer by clicking on the
little arrow in the copy/move window that pops up once you start the
process.

 

That's nice Mr. Jones, but it still sucks

 

Then give it up.

 

:

I've tried switching off differential compression and indexing, with no
effect. I regularly copy a single Word file of less than 5 megabytes between
a hard drive and a flash drive. The "calculating time" dialog then appears
for several minutes, on one occasion nearly 10 minutes. An attempt to copy
the file over a network connection took so long that I just gave up. The
"Cancel" dialog then sat there until i rebooted the machine.

I've tried command line copy and FreeCommander - same results, so whatever
this is is deep down in the OS, it's not some simple Explorer problem.

Unfortunately Vista came with my new laptop and I doubt if drivers are
available for XP. Otherwise I wouldn't have thought twice about installing XP
instead. I've even started to install Linux on a new flash drive to see if I
can run Word under Wine, all because copying files is taking such an
incredibly long time.

 

My take is while the symptoms are the same there are actually multiple
problems causing painfully slow file transfers for countless people.
If you get poor results copying from the command prompt or a third
party shell something obviously is seriously wrong more than just
known issues with Explorer.

Since you bought a named box, Dell, HP, whatever, you should look in
their forums to see if people have similar issues or on the vendor's
web site for BIOS updates and patches. Since you mentioned Flash
drive, it could be the source of the problem with it's memory being
corrupted. Since they are now so cheap with little effort you can find
all kinds of brands selling USB flash for $20 or so, I would try that
if see if it makes a difference.

 

Perhaps we need an time remaining for the calculate time reamining
calculation? rofl

Seriously what's the point of estamating the time reamining when your
transfering 1 large file and it won't tell you a time until it transfers at
least 1 file?

Serioulsy! I'd like to know about when a 6 gig the transfer will be done
BEFORE the file is done transfering.

*Vista* - The start/cause of the Linux Revolution.

 

Perhaps this is not the proper place to ask this question, but my dilemma
seems even more frustrating. I can't even simply right-click on a file under
documents (or wherever) and "sent to" the usb. Neither can I right click on a
jpeg and choose "open with" without the Vista business just continuing to
swirl and getting me nowhere. Never had this problem of course with XP!

 

Whenever I DELETE a file, Why does it take so long??? Calculating time
remaining is the same on a small file or a large file. How can I delete a
file and have it just do that one simple task without taking so long?? There
must be a registry fix or ammend. Ive tried Microsofts "HOTFIX" but to no
avail. ANy Ideas??
Thanks for your time,
Bob

 

It's a known issue that Microsoft admits to. Hopefully it will get
fully resolved once SP1 gets released late this year or early next.

You can reduce it somewhat, but only sometimes if you also take over
ownership of all your hard drives making whatever user you log in as
have full permissions which you can change/add by going to the
security tab for each of your drives. I don't suggest you mess with
your root drive however, Vista claims that as it's own and don't like
you to fiddle with it.

This issue is often spit on by this newsgroup's idiots of which sadly
there are several that don't know any better, one in particular, named
Frank, the newsgroup resident moron.

It is a real issue, Microsoft is aware of it. Hopefully they will
fully fix it soon it is probably driving millions of people nuts.

One 'cure' is to not to use Windows Explorer for
copying/moving/deleting instead using some third party shell none of
which have this problem proving it is indeed an exclusive Vista
specific issue. It doesn't effect all systems, just some, so those
that don't have it being the crude no knowing morons they are will
constantly try to make fun of those that do experience it.

 

Wait for SP1 due out soon, I believe they have fixed it in there.

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