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Dontcha Love Windows?

ebergerlyebergerly Posts: 3,255
edited July 2017 in The Commons

So I'm backing up my files to an external hard drive in preparation for moving over to my new computer. 

So I ask Windows 10 to copy what turns out to be around 75,000 files. So as it starts it estimates it will take about 15 minutes. Cool. I'm impressed.

Next time I glance at the estimate: 14 hours. Say what??

Next time I glance at the estimate: 18 minutes. Huh??

Next time I glance at the estimate: 40 minutes. Okay, I get it, you're clueless.

And this has been the case throughout the history of Windows. The most difficult challenge in the universe apparently is estimating how long it takes to do stuff. Time remaining, Percent complete..... apparently impossible to estimate. 

Apparently there's no way to estimate for the different file types and sizes, how long it takes. And no way to estimate how many files have to be moved, even though it explicitly says.  

Unbelievable. How many times have you seen Windows say 10% complete. A minute later, 20% complete. A minute later, 80% complete. An hour later, 85% complete. 

Now it's not like my computer is busy doing anything else, and can't account for all these other processes hogging the drive. 

I dunno. It's incredible. It's one of those "we can send a man to the moon, but we can't...."

And what's even more amazing is it doesn't seem to learn what the average transfer rate has been thus far, and use that to give a better estimate. Heck *I* can look at the average transfer rate in the graph and figure how long it will take. 

Geez. 

 

Post edited by ebergerly on

Comments

  • GatorGator Posts: 1,320

    Yeah, that still rears it's ugly head once in a great while.  smiley

    But Win 10 is still better than a Mac, no offense to Apple users.

     

     

  • FSMCDesignsFSMCDesigns Posts: 12,846

    Then there are the things it does really well. You could go back to DOS or try a LINUX system. I just went and got some popcorn to be ready for the non window users to chime in and say how great what they use is, LOL

  • ebergerlyebergerly Posts: 3,255

    While waiting, I just saw a "How-to-Geek" explanation on why it can be almost impossible to get a decent estimate. 

    But I don't care. I don't believe it. smiley

  • ebergerlyebergerly Posts: 3,255
    edited July 2017

    Kind of interesting...

    As I watch the transfer I noticed that mp4's tend to transfer at an almost flat 100MB/sec rate with a USB3.0 going to a SATA drive. Very constant. 

    OTOH, DUF files transfer very slowly. And it seems image files transfer slowly too. 

    I just can't imagine they can't get a lookup table of transfer rates for different file types, get the size and number of the files, and come up with something better than the junk they come up with. 

    Post edited by ebergerly on
  • IceDragonArtIceDragonArt Posts: 12,904
    ebergerly said:

    Kind of interesting...

    As I watch the transfer I noticed that mp4's tend to transfer at an almost flat 100MB/sec rate with a USB3.0 going to a SATA drive. Very constant. 

    OTOH, DUF files transfer very slowly. And it seems image files transfer slowly too. 

    I just can't imagine they can't get a lookup table of transfer rates for different file types, get the size and number of the files, and come up with something better than the junk they come up with. 

    They are too busy figuring out how to make the next version of Windows even worse?   

  • AllenArtAllenArt Posts: 7,175
    edited July 2017

    In answer to your original question, no. LOL

    I don't :P

    If I could use all my software in Linux, I'd be deliriously happy. But FWIW, I like 8.1. I wouldn't touch 10 with someone else's computer.

    Laurie

    Post edited by AllenArt on
  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 42,031
    Ice Dragon Art said:
    ebergerly said:

    Kind of interesting...

    As I watch the transfer I noticed that mp4's tend to transfer at an almost flat 100MB/sec rate with a USB3.0 going to a SATA drive. Very constant. 

    OTOH, DUF files transfer very slowly. And it seems image files transfer slowly too. 

    I just can't imagine they can't get a lookup table of transfer rates for different file types, get the size and number of the files, and come up with something better than the junk they come up with. 

    They are too busy figuring out how to make the next version of Windows even worse?   

    ...indeed, according tp what I read in one tech journal, W10-S may be the future model for all versions of the OS.
  • TaozTaoz Posts: 10,285

    There are several non-windows factors that can slow down copying considerably, like AV-programs which may be scanning files on both read and write, weak sectors on disks which can be very slow to read from and write to, reallocation of bad sectors (not common though), heavy file fragmentation (I've seen files fragmented into many thousand parts). These things are more or less impossible for Windows to calculate.

  • DkgooseDkgoose Posts: 1,451

    If you are just switching to windows 10 don't upgrade from your current os, i jumped and upgraded and had nothing but issues with drivers and bsod so after reverting back to windows 8 for the third time of failed attempts I caved in and backed up folders and finally did a clean install for windows 10 and after days I finally can use daz studio again

  • hacsarthacsart Posts: 2,034

    There are quite a few reasons that can cause using the shell (drag and drop) file copy to be slow.. Shell tasks can be run at a lower system priority, depending on what else the OS is doing at any given time. Poorly written drivers can be an issue too.. One trick that MIGHT  help is to disable "Remote Differential Compression"  in Windows Features...


     

  • FossilFossil Posts: 166

    You should try Directory Opus ( http://www.gpsoft.com.au/ ) with the TeraCopy plug in ( http://www.codesector.com/teracopy ).  These are both significantly much more robust and stable programs that facilitate working with large files or huge collections.  I won't leave home without them.

  • TaozTaoz Posts: 10,285
    Fossil said:

    You should try Directory Opus ( http://www.gpsoft.com.au/ ) with the TeraCopy plug in ( http://www.codesector.com/teracopy ).  These are both significantly much more robust and stable programs that facilitate working with large files or huge collections.  I won't leave home without them.

    +1

  • GatorGator Posts: 1,320
    Fossil said:

    You should try Directory Opus ( http://www.gpsoft.com.au/ ) with the TeraCopy plug in ( http://www.codesector.com/teracopy ).  These are both significantly much more robust and stable programs that facilitate working with large files or huge collections.  I won't leave home without them.

    If free is more your speed, Microsoft's Robocopy is very good and relied upon by many systems pros.  Command line interface, but someone at MS made a GUI shell for it.

    https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/2009.04.utilityspotlight.aspx

  • brainmuffinbrainmuffin Posts: 1,276

    If you are copying via drag and drop, Windows first copies all those files to a temp space, then copies them to the distination. Creating and closing files is slower than copying the bytes, so I'll wager it gets the total size and then when it is copying a large file, it calculates optimistically. When it sees lots of smaller files, it figures, oh crap.

  • BradCarstenBradCarsten Posts: 856
    Another thing they haven't learned to do yet is check if the destination drive is big enough for the files that you want to copy to it. There's nothing worse than waiting for half an hour only to be told that you don't have enough space
  • RobotHeadArtRobotHeadArt Posts: 917

    https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040106-00/?p=41193

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