Anyone know how i can stop my HDD having to repeatedly load the thumbnails?

Legolas8181

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I would like to know if there's a way to stop it constantly having to do that. If there's not, I am prepared to use List View but there is one specific folder on that HDD, and all the files withi that folder, that needs to be Large Icons and stay Large Icons
 
Solution
Normally thumbnails should be caches on the system and only updated as required.

Does it do this every time?

I know it can be an issue on network drives or shared removable storage at times.

You can stop windows from saving a thumbnail cache(for network drives), but it still will generate thumbnails[but faster since it is not making various sizes and saving them to the same drive] on every folder(if you are not in detail mode). You can also set it to show icons only and never thumbnails.

The icon only option is easy. Hit View -> Options -> change folder and search options. Now select the View tab and place a checkbox next to Always show icons, never thumbnails.

Making windows not save a thumbnail cache involves a registry edit and...


View, select what you want for that folder. Large icons, detail, whatever.
Other folders should not be influenced by that choice.
 
From the looks of it it is a complete separate drive from the C:/ drive. This means normally it will go to sleep when not used. When it does this is needs to wake up and refresh everything before use. To stop this prevent the drive from enter sleep state.

I will edit this post with instructions on how to do so.

EDIT: http://www.thewindowsclub.com/prevent-hard-drive-going-sleep-windows

Once the folder is loaded as long as the system does not enter sleep nor the HDD the system should not need to reload the thumbnails.
 


I did that, it went back to List View
 
Normally thumbnails should be caches on the system and only updated as required.

Does it do this every time?

I know it can be an issue on network drives or shared removable storage at times.

You can stop windows from saving a thumbnail cache(for network drives), but it still will generate thumbnails[but faster since it is not making various sizes and saving them to the same drive] on every folder(if you are not in detail mode). You can also set it to show icons only and never thumbnails.

The icon only option is easy. Hit View -> Options -> change folder and search options. Now select the View tab and place a checkbox next to Always show icons, never thumbnails.

Making windows not save a thumbnail cache involves a registry edit and I have only used it for network drives.
http://www.howtogeek.com/210764/fix-file-in-use-deletion-errors-on-network-drives-by-disabling-windows-thumbnail-generation/

If you want to see thumbnails faster in a folder, Irfanview has its own thumbnail mode(you can adjust the size and other settings as well) that is very fast(it does not cache, so it loads them over every time). It also has a decent set of image conversion and minor editing features
http://www.irfanview.com/
 
Solution


Given the description of that program, it should work but it currently won't let me install. Just says it's stopped working
 


There should be no program necessary to keep the HDD from entering sleep mode. Enter the power options menu and click on advanced, under hard disk set the time to go to sleep to 0 mins and apply. This will stop the drive from entering sleep mode.

Is this an external drive?
 


It's an external drive yes. That thing about setting the slep time to 0, I tried that a while ago and nothing changed.