Windows Explorer is VERY slow to load files

Windows Explorer displays the contents of most folder fine. But all the ones
with pictures take FOREVER to load and refresh whether they are in List view
of Thumbnails. I assume this has to do with loading preview information and
icons for the file they are associated with (photoshop in my case), since
document files like Word and Excel load quickly.

Does anyone have ideas on how to fix this? I have tried changing the folder
type and alternately turned indexing on and off but it did not seem to make
much difference. Drives have been scanned and defragmented. Some are FAT32
and some are NTFS - both drag along in slow motion. happens in folders with
less than a hundred photos. Most of mine have thousands, mostly JPEG,
although I have not noticed anydifference in the loading of images with
different file types. Sometimes it works better and sometimes it freezes
Explorer and I get a Not Responding message. I use task manager to close the
open folder and open it again and it does seem to load them faster the next
time. Would changing my JPG file association to something other than
Photoshop help, or is this even related to the issue?

Thanks for any and all help.

Some system information - AMD 2600+ with 1GB RAM and two 40GB HDs at 7200,
AGP video card with 128MB onboard - all driver and other updates applied.

"Bob" wrote in message
...
Windows Explorer displays the contents of most folders fine. But all the
ones with pictures take FOREVER to load and refresh whether they are in
List view of Thumbnails. I assume this has to do with loading preview
information and icons for the file they are associated with (Photoshop in
my case), since document files like Word and Excel load quickly.

Does anyone have ideas on how to fix this? I have tried changing the
folder type and alternately turned indexing on and off but it did not seem
to make much difference. Drives have been scanned and defragmented. Some
are FAT32 and some are NTFS - both drag along in slow motion. Happens in
folders with less than a hundred photos. Most of mine have thousands,
mostly JPEG, although I have not noticed any difference in the loading of
images with different file types. Sometimes it works better and sometimes
it freezes Explorer and I get a Not Responding message. I use Task Manager
to close the open folder and open it again and it does seem to load them
faster the next time. Would changing my JPG file association to something
other than Photoshop help, or is this even related to the issue?

Thanks for any and all help.