Speed up Windows Explorer on a network

Posted on July 25, 2008 at 5:24 am

Do you have a screaming fast multi-core processing machine with load of RAM and it still seems to take a couple minutes to open what should be simple things such as My computer?  Or when logging on to the domain does it take what seems forever?  It is not your computer being slow but rather the OS.

As a quick disclaimer, I know this affects XP but have not tried it with Vista on a network.  If anyone has information about Vista experiencing similar issues, please let us know!

XP is looking at shared network resources such as shared printers and files.  Windows is simply monitoring these resources to make connecting to them easier, and if you have a large network it is going to take longer.  An easy way to correct this is to turn this feature off.  Don’t worry, you’ll be able to still connect to the shared resources with no problem.

Open Windows Explorer and go to Tools >> Folder Options >> View.  Now under Advanced Settings just uncheck the box “Automatically search for network folders and printers”.

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Click Apply and OK and you should notice a much greater gain in speed! Enjoy!

Written by Mysticgeek who is also a contributing author at How-To Geek.

» Filed Under Computer Tips

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Comments

2 Responses to “Speed up Windows Explorer on a network”

  1. Anonymous said on : August 21st, 2008 at 2:34 am

    Vista doesn’t have “Automatically search for network folders and printers”.

    Instead one can use the following commands;
    “netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=YOUR CHOICE”

    There are 4 choices:
    highlyrestricted
    normal
    restricted
    experimental

    Each one has different scenarios. do a search, you’ll be able to read the pros and cons of each scenario.


  2. hyatt said on : August 24th, 2008 at 3:38 pm

    NICE. I’ve been looking for that little optimization. It is especially nice when viewing folders with many files. Thanks


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