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Progress Bars for Small Operations

Submitted by Amtrak7 on June 18, 2008 to Annoyance, Bug, Usability

When you copy, delete, or move a file, there should be a progress bar. However, Vista has taken this to an annoying level--Even the smallest of files (shortcuts) display a progress bar when deleting them. Opening windows and closing them slows the OS considerably.

Medium

Low

Not fixed

Discussion (6 comments)

Tuanese wrote on June 18, 2008, 8:46am

1. Delete anything all required to display progress bar
2. Detecting size of file just waste of time, we can't always wait!

eried wrote on June 18, 2008, 8:59am

I dont see progress bars for small files (I have disabled the "delete file" confirmation alert)

alewifebp wrote on June 18, 2008, 9:00pm

However, detecting the size of a file, or particularly, if it is many small files, takes time anyway. The net result will be the same.

Nidonocu wrote on June 19, 2008, 6:24am

Might be neat instead to display the spinning halo icon over a file or ghost file (for when you are looking at the destination of a copy/move). Then if the operation takes +5 seconds -and- there is over 50% of the file left to transfer, it opens the progress dialog.

bwilson wrote on June 20, 2008, 3:36am

I don't think detecting the size of the files before choosing whether or not to show a progress bar is the right solution, but your problem is a very good one. +1

zooba wrote on June 24, 2008, 1:51pm

Agree with the problem, but not the solution. The size of the file doesn't affect the time taken to delete. A single file should just disappear.

Multiple files, on the other hand, deserve a progress bar.

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