Folders Opening Slow in Vista, Seven – Disable Indexing, Thumbnail Previews

This is major problem in vista and windows seven where the explorer takes a long time to open a folder properly esp. if it contains media files. This is sometimes referred to as the Green Ribbon of Death (just like the common blue screen of deaths).

In fact this slow folder opening in vista and seven bugs me a lot and this is why I am still on Xp. But I found some common solutions to this problem…

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Stop Windows Explorer Green Progress Bar in Vista, Seven – Make Folder Navigation Faster

# Turn Off Indexing Services

You can exclude indexing service for certain locations in Indexing Options in Control Panel, or simply disable and turn off indexing for a certain drive and for selected folders via the Properties > Advanced of a drive or folder.

# Disable Thumbnail Preview

If you open a folder in Vista or Seven, windows will always try to generate a preview thumbnail for almost every files. This slows down the explorer’s processes. The problem becomes worse if you have a lot of broken or corrupt avi files. To disable thumbnail preview feature, check the checkbox next to Always show icons, never thumbnails in the Folder and Search Options in control panel.

# Turn Off Windows Search

Worth a try if none else is working. Note: You will not able to search, not even in the start menu.

• Open Services applet in Control Panel or type Services.msc in Start Search.
• Go to Properties of Windows Search and set the Startup Type to Disabled.

The reason why this works against slow folder opening in vista, seven as Windows Search is the component to run indexing services in Vista.

These will turn off the Green Ribbon of Death hopefully and fix the slow folder opening in vista and seven.

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