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Deleting files in Windows XP extremely slow

Why does deleting files (and at the same time, emptying the recycle bin) takes so long on Windows where it would be near instantaneous on another OS like Linux? This behavior is definitely present on all Windows and seems to be more prominent when deleting a lot a small files (as expected) or a folder containing such files and in exponential time (not quite expected).

Can this be ameliorated? (I don't know, maybe setting registry entry HK_USERS/haveOneOrMoreCoffeeBeforeDeletingAnyFile to false?)

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I'd put a Benny down that that reg key actually does something and is just not documented. – squillman Mar 5 '10 at 16:24
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migrated from serverfault.com Mar 5 '10 at 19:19

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closed as exact duplicate by Jared Harley, Diago Mar 5 '10 at 20:43

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Sounds more like a quirk with how Explorer works, not Windows or the file system per se - I know Vista overdid it but it may show you the dialog until the delete has actually been written to disk and not just to the various in-between caching mechanisms...

I always use Directory Opus for Windows file management and deletes are normally visually instant. Do you experience the same problems using other tools than Explorer like say the command del (which is notoriously annoying to handle files with imo)?

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