Windows 8.1 Pro File Explorer Extremely Slow

Question

Hello,
I am using Windows 8.1 Professional, and since a short time, I am having troubles with the file explorer.
It is extremely slow. When I just want to select a file, it takes about 10 seconds, if not more, and then any operation I perform on files (opening directories, renaming files, right-clicking for options, etc.) is terribly slow.
I have looked at the indexing options and tried to minimize the areas that are indexed, but to no avail. Even with only C:/Users indexed, I have about 500,000 items indexed.
Here are my PC specifications:
1. 32 GB of RAM
2. Intel core i7 3.50 GHz with 4 cores
3. 240 GB SSD in RAID + 3 TB Western Digital Black Edition in RAID
Do you have any ideas on how I could solve this? Also, I would like not having to clean-install my PC.
Regards,
Jeremie

Answer 1

AMS-DIS, perhaps you're talking about a different level of problem than the person who started this thread.
Just because you've seen it personally doesn't make it automatically a systemic Microsoft problem.  While I don't disagree that Explorer could be better programmed, there ARE those of us who don't see regular crashes, freezes, or particularly slow operation.
Keeping in mind that external drives have to spin up, and that can be perceived as taking some time when you access the drive in Explorer, once spun up you shouldn't be seeing noticeable delay.
If you are, please quantify what you're seeing with some specifics.
Here's what I see:
When I first navigate to my spun-down MyBook external USB drive I see the contents of the root folder instantly.
When I navigate a level or two into the folder structure I see a few second delay when it gets deep enough that the data is not cached and the drive has to spin up to get it.
Then, once spun up, when I navigate into any folder its contents show up instantly.
When I copy a file by dragging to/from the drive or do a backup to the drive I see a substantial percentage of the theoretical maximum transfer speed (I have USB2).
If you are not seeing performance similar to the above then you have something out of the ordinary set up on your particular system that's causing it.  You should never be seeing crashes.  I don't.
Now, that being said, when transferring multiple files / folders, I *do* see a fair bit of slowdown in transfer rate, implying something's being throttled back by Explorer or there's way too much end to end communication, even between SSDs.
I've wondered whether Explorer is slowing things down just so you can see them happen in its progress dialog.    Windows XP used to be faster at copying big blocks of multiple files even 13 years ago.
-Noel
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