up vote 3 down vote favorite
share [g+] share [fb]

In Windows 7 (this may have been introduced as far back as Vista), loading items in the various control panels occurs incrementally.

You can see this most obvious if you have a lot of programs installed and you open the Programs and Features control panel.

For instance, as soon as I open the view, I see:

  • Adobe Flash Player 10 Plugin
  • Apple Application Support
  • CCleaner
  • Fiddler2

a couple of seconds later, the list "twitches" and updates to:

  • 7-Zip
  • Adobe Flash Player 10 Plugin
  • Apple Application Support
  • BlackBerry JDE
  • CCleaner
  • Fiddler2

then a couple of seconds later, it updates AGAIN with more items.

This is particularly annoying when I'm just trying to uninstall a program I see. I find my program, hover the mouse on it, and a fraction of a second before I click, the list updates again and the item I wanted to select has moved down.

It's frustrating and the loading process can go on for more than 10 seconds.

Is there a registry key I can modify to prevent this behaviour? I'd much rather see a loading icon for 10 seconds and be able to use the interface than be presented with a UI I can't reliably interact with.

link|improve this question
1  
I know what you mean for the Programs and Features, but where else in Control Panel have to seen this behaviour exhibited? – techie007 Nov 10 '11 at 17:50
1  
I see it in the main Control Panel as well, though it's less pronounced. It happens when you have third party control panel items just the NVIDIA Control Panel or the RealTek audio control panels that come with ASUS motherboards. In that case, you see the Windows control panel items populate, then after a few ticks the third party pop into place. On much slower machines, you'll also see this behaviour as it loads the Windows control panel items. – Stefan Mohr Nov 10 '11 at 18:55
feedback

2 Answers

up vote 2 down vote accepted

You can't do what you're asking, I figure its a non-changeable Windows setting, but I can suggest a third-party program like CCleaner which has a pretty simple uninstall dialog that loads up all the installed programs in a blink and without any waiting, even with a large list (I have almost 200).

There's also Revo Uninstaller to completely remove all traces of the program when you uninstall it (left over registry files, files, folders etc.), but it also has a push for an upgrade to the 'Pro' version which I don't like.

link|improve this answer
+1 for CCleaner – Luke Nov 11 '11 at 2:18
feedback
up vote 5 down vote

You must wait for the programs list to complete loading. The more programs installed, the more it will take to load the list. If its taking very long, something might be hogging your computer processing speed, or that's as fast as your hardware can go.

I have 197 programs installed, and it took aproximately 8-10 seconds to load the complete list. You must wait for the list to load.

link|improve this answer
feedback

Your Answer

 
or
required, but never shown
discard

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.