C:\ Full

On Sat, 7 Jul 2018 14:25:06 -0400, Keith Nuttle
wrote:

On 7/7/2018 12:54 PM, Char Jackson wrote:
On Sat, 7 Jul 2018 10:19:55 -0400, Keith Nuttle
wrote:

I am the one who suggested deleting files in SoftwareDistribution, and I
can confirm that this folder can take up a lot of space. I never
checked the exact number of bytes, but I know I have spent hours
deleting the files.

Hi Keith,
I'm curious to hear why it took hours to delete those files, when I
think it should have taken less than a minute. Do you have any thoughts
on what was going on?

Yes!
First there were many folders, sub folders and files. I have selected
all files in a folder and it has shown 6000 files area being deleted.

Second it was on my tablet which is limited memory and a slow processor.

I found an article mentioned earlier in this thread, and was shocked a
the number of files I found in this folder. When you are deleting that
many files even on a faster computer it takes some time.


The tablet is a touch tablet, which makes makes it a pain to make the
inputs, and I have never found how to do the operation mouse operation
Click, Shift Click to select multiple files on the touch screen.
Even if you do a select all, and delete; with thousands of files you
never know if the system is hung up or is working. (I can be a bit
impatient.) This is how I learned about setting the immediate delete
parameter in the Recycle bin.

Thanks, Keith, and thanks also to Paul for contributing his experience,
as well. I guess I've seen something similar when I needed to delete
over 100,000 jpg images and it took much longer than I expected. Not
hours, but several minutes, as I recall. On XP, that same operation used
to take about 10-20 seconds.

Char Jackson wrote:
On Sat, 7 Jul 2018 14:25:06 -0400, Keith Nuttle
wrote:

On 7/7/2018 12:54 PM, Char Jackson wrote:
On Sat, 7 Jul 2018 10:19:55 -0400, Keith Nuttle
wrote:

I am the one who suggested deleting files in SoftwareDistribution, and I
can confirm that this folder can take up a lot of space. I never
checked the exact number of bytes, but I know I have spent hours
deleting the files.
Hi Keith,
I'm curious to hear why it took hours to delete those files, when I
think it should have taken less than a minute. Do you have any thoughts
on what was going on?

Yes!
First there were many folders, sub folders and files. I have selected
all files in a folder and it has shown 6000 files area being deleted.

Second it was on my tablet which is limited memory and a slow processor.

I found an article mentioned earlier in this thread, and was shocked a
the number of files I found in this folder. When you are deleting that
many files even on a faster computer it takes some time.


The tablet is a touch tablet, which makes makes it a pain to make the
inputs, and I have never found how to do the operation mouse operation
Click, Shift Click to select multiple files on the touch screen.
Even if you do a select all, and delete; with thousands of files you
never know if the system is hung up or is working. (I can be a bit
impatient.) This is how I learned about setting the immediate delete
parameter in the Recycle bin.

Thanks, Keith, and thanks also to Paul for contributing his experience,
as well. I guess I've seen something similar when I needed to delete
over 100,000 jpg images and it took much longer than I expected. Not
hours, but several minutes, as I recall. On XP, that same operation used
to take about 10-20 seconds.

There is a stark difference, between how Explorer.exe
works when dealing with files, and how a shell-level
FindNext works.

I can do "dir" in a Command Prompt window, and easily list
8 million files in the window. They're sorted in alphabetical
order in three columns. That means the command knew pretty
close to the beginning of the output, what it had to do.

Explorer.exe on the other hand, fails in the simplest
and least taxing of situations. It should be a
"case study for CS class" for somebody.

What I can't figure out, is how "dir" and FindNext
are able to sort a 40GB $MFT in no time at all, and
start outputting file names... in alphabetical order.
It's fast enough that "there's got to be a trick".

Whereas with File Explorer, around 1 million files is
a practical upper limit for "expecting the window
to ever paint". And you can find/create failure
test cases for Explorer with as few as 60,000 files
in a single folder (the window will have a "busy icon"
forever).

Paul

On Sat, 07 Jul 2018 19:52:54 -0400, Paul wrote:

There is a stark difference, between how Explorer.exe
works when dealing with files, and how a shell-level
FindNext works.

I can do "dir" in a Command Prompt window, and easily list
8 million files in the window. They're sorted in alphabetical
order in three columns. That means the command knew pretty
close to the beginning of the output, what it had to do.

Explorer.exe on the other hand, fails in the simplest
and least taxing of situations. It should be a
"case study for CS class" for somebody.

What I can't figure out, is how "dir" and FindNext
are able to sort a 40GB $MFT in no time at all, and
start outputting file names... in alphabetical order.
It's fast enough that "there's got to be a trick".

Whereas with File Explorer, around 1 million files is
a practical upper limit for "expecting the window
to ever paint". And you can find/create failure
test cases for Explorer with as few as 60,000 files
in a single folder (the window will have a "busy icon"
forever).

I've wondered the same things and I have no real answers. If they really
wanted to, I'm sure they could address each of those performance issues,
but I can only conclude that they don't want to.

"Paul" wrote

| There is a stark difference, between how Explorer.exe
| works when dealing with files, and how a shell-level
| FindNext works.
|
| I can do "dir" in a Command Prompt window, and easily list
| 8 million files in the window. They're sorted in alphabetical
| order in three columns. That means the command knew pretty
| close to the beginning of the output, what it had to do.
|

Explorer is using FindFirstFile/FindNextFile and
may even be using something better under the
surface -- Microsoft's private stock. But it also
has to deal with showing icons, calculating time
remaining with deletes, managing shell extensions,
etc. In other words, the API is just dealing with
the file system. Explorer is primarily GUI functionality.
And it's still tied into IE.

If you look at it in Depends or a similar program
you can see that kernel and ntdll are only a small
part of what Explorer is dealing with It's loading
wininet (IE) to parse URLs, uxtheme for the GUI
theme, user32 for drawing and tracking down user
display preferences, gdi for display, some unnamed
functions from shdocvw (IE again).... Plus there are
things like ole, browseui.dll and version.dll for
collecting file info, properties, default icon, media
info, etc. If you're going to deal with files in a folder
in the Windows GUI, all of that comes into play.

On Sat, 7 Jul 2018 09:47:48 -0400, Big Al wrote:

On 07/07/2018 08:44 AM, Stan Brown wrote:
"C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution"

I have 881,877,855 bytes in 30 files and 32 dirs under this one. Are
we sure that it's okay to delete all of them. This won't for example,
cause Windows Update to take many hours next time I run it?

You sure there is close to a Tera Byte of data
there? Wow.

Nope -- close to a gigabyte.

I think it was Heinlein who said all large numbers were the same. :-)


--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://BrownMath.com/
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
Shikata ga nai...

On Sat, 7 Jul 2018 10:19:55 -0400, Keith Nuttle wrote:
One tip for the person with the problem. Before you start deleting
files in this directory, go into the properties of the Recycle bin
properties and check "Don't move files to Recycle bin. Remove files
immediately when deleted" This will make the process go smoothly.

Or, use Shift-Delete instead of Delete. That bypasses the Recycle Bin
for that one operation only, so that you don't need to remember to go
back and change your Recycle Bin settings a second time.


--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://BrownMath.com/
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
Shikata ga nai...

On Sat, 7 Jul 2018 14:25:06 -0400, Keith Nuttle wrote:
The tablet is a touch tablet, which makes makes it a pain to make the
inputs, and I have never found how to do the operation mouse operation
Click, Shift Click to select multiple files on the touch screen.

Ctrl+A selects all files in the current folder.

Of course there's also the command prompt.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://BrownMath.com/
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
Shikata ga nai...

On Sat, 07 Jul 2018 19:52:54 -0400, Paul wrote:
What I can't figure out, is how "dir" and FindNext
are able to sort a 40GB $MFT in no time at all, and
start outputting file names... in alphabetical order.
It's fast enough that "there's got to be a trick".


I think the file entries in an NTFS system are maintained in a
structure that lends itself to alphabetical searches. It's why pretty
much anything you do -- copy, for instance -- is in alphabetical
order in NTFS but not in FAT32.



--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://BrownMath.com/
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
Shikata ga nai...

In message , Stan Brown
writes:
On Sat, 7 Jul 2018 14:25:06 -0400, Keith Nuttle wrote:
The tablet is a touch tablet, which makes makes it a pain to make the
inputs, and I have never found how to do the operation mouse operation
Click, Shift Click to select multiple files on the touch screen.

Ctrl+A selects all files in the current folder.

Yes, but Keith might have wanted to select, say, 7 files, or a range of
files, rather than all of them.

Of course there's also the command prompt.

--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

It's OK to be tight on
The seafront at Brighton
But I say, by Jove
Watch out if it's Hove.
- Sister Monica Joan, quoted by Jennifer Worth (author of the Call the
Midwife books, quoted in Radio Times 19-25 January 2013)

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Stan Brown
writes:
On Sat, 7 Jul 2018 14:25:06 -0400, Keith Nuttle wrote:
The tablet is a touch tablet, which makes makes it a pain to make the
inputs, and I have never found how to do the operation mouse operation
Click, Shift Click to select multiple files on the touch screen.
Ctrl+A selects all files in the current folder.

Yes, but Keith might have wanted to select, say, 7 files, or a range of
files, rather than all of them.
Of course there's also the command prompt.


Some combination of control, alt, and shift,
allows extending a selection with "holes" in it.

It's control-alt that allows mousing and selecting
separate items. They don't have to be touching one another.

You can also select "chunks" and add them while holding
down those keys.

https://s22.postimg.cc/xe221hskx/extended_selection.gif

Paul

In message , Paul
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Stan Brown
writes:
On Sat, 7 Jul 2018 14:25:06 -0400, Keith Nuttle wrote:
The tablet is a touch tablet, which makes makes it a pain to make the
inputs, and I have never found how to do the operation mouse operation
Click, Shift Click to select multiple files on the touch screen.
Ctrl+A selects all files in the current folder.
Yes, but Keith might have wanted to select, say, 7 files, or a range
of
files, rather than all of them.
Of course there's also the command prompt.


Some combination of control, alt, and shift,
allows extending a selection with "holes" in it.

It's control-alt that allows mousing and selecting
separate items. They don't have to be touching one another.

I know those, and I think Keith does too: I think he was just saying he
was finding them near-impossible on a touch-screen device (no real
keyboard or mouse).

You can also select "chunks" and add them while holding
down those keys.

https://s22.postimg.cc/xe221hskx/extended_selection.gif

Paul

Not sure how I'd select a chunk and add it to an existing selection -
the action of starting to select the chunk would I think deselect
anything already selected. But no matter! I think Keith's comment above
was about the difficulty of using a touch screen as the _only_ input.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Never raise your hand to your children. It leaves your mid-section unprotected

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Stan Brown
writes:
On Sat, 7 Jul 2018 14:25:06 -0400, Keith Nuttle wrote:
The tablet is a touch tablet, which makes makes it a pain to make the
inputs, and I have never found how to do the operation mouse operation
Click, Shift Click to select multiple files on the touch screen.
Ctrl+A selects all files in the current folder.
Yes, but Keith might have wanted to select, say, 7 files, or a range of
files, rather than all of them.
Of course there's also the command prompt.


Some combination of control, alt, and shift,
allows extending a selection with "holes" in it.

It's control-alt that allows mousing and selecting
separate items. They don't have to be touching one another.

I know those, and I think Keith does too: I think he was just saying he
was finding them near-impossible on a touch-screen device (no real
keyboard or mouse).

You can also select "chunks" and add them while holding
down those keys.

https://s22.postimg.cc/xe221hskx/extended_selection.gif

Paul

Not sure how I'd select a chunk and add it to an existing selection -
the action of starting to select the chunk would I think deselect
anything already selected. But no matter! I think Keith's comment above
was about the difficulty of using a touch screen as the _only_ input.

You might need some sort of sticky keys solution,
where pressing some keys sequentially, builds up
a hotkey-combo for you.

Having had the misfortune, of using a tiny touch
device just a couple days ago, I can sympathize with
the problems of operating them. What rubbish!!!

I'm thinking "Bluetooth keyboard for the win".
If you need to do extensive data entry, and not
watch music videos on it, then get a keyboard.

Paul

On 7/8/2018 6:41 AM, Paul wrote:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Stan Brown
writes:
On Sat, 7 Jul 2018 14:25:06 -0400, Keith Nuttle wrote:
The tablet is a touch tablet, which makes makes it a pain to make the
inputs, and I have never found how to do the operation mouse
operation
Click, Shift Click to select multiple files on the touch screen.
Ctrl+A selects all files in the current folder.
Â*Yes, but Keith might have wanted to select, say, 7 files, or a
range of
files, rather than all of them.
Of course there's also the command prompt.


Some combination of control, alt, and shift,
allows extending a selection with "holes" in it.

It's control-alt that allows mousing and selecting
separate items. They don't have to be touching one another.

I know those, and I think Keith does too: I think he was just saying
he was finding them near-impossible on a touch-screen device (no real
keyboard or mouse).

You can also select "chunks" and add them while holding
down those keys.

https://s22.postimg.cc/xe221hskx/extended_selection.gif

Â* Paul

Not sure how I'd select a chunk and add it to an existing selection -
the action of starting to select the chunk would I think deselect
anything already selected. But no matter! I think Keith's comment
above was about the difficulty of using a touch screen as the _only_
input.

You might need some sort of sticky keys solution,
where pressing some keys sequentially, builds up
a hotkey-combo for you.

Having had the misfortune, of using a tiny touch
device just a couple days ago, I can sympathize with
the problems of operating them. What rubbish!!!

I'm thinking "Bluetooth keyboard for the win".
If you need to do extensive data entry, and not
watch music videos on it, then get a keyboard.

Â*Â* Paul
If you need to do extensive data entry work, get a laptop.

I find it amazing that people praise the smartphone and touch tablet,
and then run down to Walmart and by keyboards and other peripherals to
make it a laptop.

While the keyboard idea is great, with my small tablet there is one port
that accepts the power cord, the keyboard, etc.

When you have to do things like remove thousands of files, it needs to
be plugged in, so it is difficult to have a keyboard or mouse attached
to the tablet, and have sufficient energy that it will not die during
the task you are trying to do.
--
2018: The year we learn to play the great game of Euchre

On Sun, 8 Jul 2018 11:21:22 +0100, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

Not sure how I'd select a chunk and add it to an existing selection -
the action of starting to select the chunk would I think deselect
anything already selected. But no matter! I think Keith's comment above
was about the difficulty of using a touch screen as the _only_ input.

What's wrong with turning off the windows update service and deleting
the whole softwaredistribution directory and contents? It worked for me
when I had a problem.

--
Regards - Rodney Pont
The from address exists but is mostly dumped,
please send any emails to the address below
e-mail rpont (at) gmail (dot) com

In alt.comp.os.windows-10 Keith Nuttle wrote:
....
If you need to do extensive data entry work, get a laptop.

I find it amazing that people praise the smartphone and touch tablet,
and then run down to Walmart and by keyboards and other peripherals to
make it a laptop.

While the keyboard idea is great, with my small tablet there is one port
that accepts the power cord, the keyboard, etc.

When you have to do things like remove thousands of files, it needs to
be plugged in, so it is difficult to have a keyboard or mouse attached
to the tablet, and have sufficient energy that it will not die during
the task you are trying to do.

For me, I dislike smartphones and tablets. I still prefer computers with
clicky keyboards, big monitors, etc. Yes, I'm old. Get off my lawn. :P
--
Quote of the Week: "I got worms! That's what we're going to call it.
We're going to specialize in selling worm farms. You know like ant
farms. What's the matter, a little tense about the flight?" --Lloyd
Christmas (Dumb and Dumber movie)
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