Windows "Discovering Items" makes Copy or Delete SO slow!

andysdad

andysdad

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When copying large/lots of files in W8.1 and 10 a box comes up "discovering items" before the actual copy or delete happens. This process of identifying what it will do, before actaully doing it, slows the process down massively - I'm trying to copy 2.7GB off a DVD and it has been discovering for 3 hours...if I try to copy off the HD onto a USB stick it is the same so it si not a hardware issue.

Long searches on the web show few suggestions - I've ticked "show icons not thumbnails", switched off Windows Search, but this is still happening.

Surely moving a few files should not take hours?

All suggestions (apart from "buy a Mac") gratefully received.

A
 
Buy a solid state drive SSD. Apart from that the dvd itself is incredibly slow. There are 3rd party file explorers and copiers as well that dispense with what windows does.
 
Thanks both but this is on W10 and surely an SSD would be no faster than a USB stick (no DVD at all).

This has been a known problem since Vista apparently but I just cannot find a solution that works for me.

I just want to ditch the whole discovering items stage of the process: Explorer knows which files to copy, and to where, so I just want the OS to copy or delete the files, not mess about counting/sizing them first.
 
Is the hard drive going mental while it's still scanning the DVD? You might be short on ram and its paging out other stuff or worst case bits of explorer that it then needs back a few moments later? Also do you have an antivirus set to scan on access? As it's looking at a lot of data it will need to do a lot of work there too, and might not be buffering enough to do it efficiently off a DVD.
 
Not paging RAM and HD nearly empty (new W10 install, >200GB free).

No AV installed yet (older PC I am experimenting with so nothing to lose) - anyway it is a Windows pop-up showing "discovering items", not an AV process.

All good stuff being suggested but I'll keep trawling the web too as it happens on 2 PCs here (W8.1 and W10) so I don't think it is just me (I hope!).
 
If it is being scanned it might be Windows Defender's Real Time protection, on Win 10 open the 'Settings' option from the Start menu then select Update & Security, now click on Windows Defender, turn Off the Real-Time protection. Then try and copy the files again.
 
Is it an issue with Windows file indexing? If the file indexing service turned off it might lead to a long wait whilst Windows 'discovers' files. Also, take a look in Control Panel, Folder options, Search tab, What to search, (Win 7)
 
Very unusual, this.
Are you certain you haven't got any malware or a virus on the machine?
Just a thought, as in post #7 you say you've no AV installed, yet.....
 
Nippy Normans supply Touratech, Wunderlich, Desert Fox and many other makes of accessories.
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