Why does unzipping files take so long?

>I downloaded a 150 MB zip file from http://eclipse.org with the firefox
>browser on a new notebook (I'm hoping there is no adware on it yet!). I
>opened up a windows explorer window on the zip file and right clicked to
>extract the files. I got a dialog box and it said it would require 2 hours
>to extract all the files!

I can't repro this problem.

I downloaded eclipse-SDK-3.3-win32.zip, 140MB, containing 1,831 items.

In Explorer I dragged and dropped the contents from a zip file to an
unzipped folder, which took 2 minutes 11 seconds.

This is on 64 bit Vista, with a 2.4GHx Core 2 Duo processor and 3Gb of RAM,
and a 10,000 rpm Western Digital Raptor SATA drive; Windows Performance
Rating 5.2.

There are many, many variables which could affect performance - CPU, other
background processes, anti-virus, filter drivers, disk IO, available memory,
etc etc.

You may be seeing a genuine problem; and I'm not suggesting Windows built-in
zip is super-efficient - it probably isn't the fastest. But, the problem
you're seeing is not universal. In many situations, the zip performance in
Vista seems to be quite acceptable.

You'd probably need to run some tests on your machine to see where the
bottleneck was with that particular operation - use Perfom and add counters
for CPU processor time, memory pages/sec, Physical disk queue length, etc.

Regards,
--
Andrew McLaren
amclar (at) optusnet dot com dot au

Did anyone ever find a solution to this problem? I have a new machine with
2GB RAM, a very fast processor, but even with antivirus turned off and
nothing else running, extracting , say, a 10MB zip file takes over 40
minutes! The transfer rate is 4k/s, so it would actually be quicker to
download the files from a dial-up modem then extract them from a zip file on
my machine!

"Andrew McLaren" wrote:

> >I downloaded a 150 MB zip file from http://eclipse.org with the firefox
> >browser on a new notebook (I'm hoping there is no adware on it yet!). I
> >opened up a windows explorer window on the zip file and right clicked to
> >extract the files. I got a dialog box and it said it would require 2 hours
> >to extract all the files!
>
> I can't repro this problem.
>
> I downloaded eclipse-SDK-3.3-win32.zip, 140MB, containing 1,831 items.
>
> In Explorer I dragged and dropped the contents from a zip file to an
> unzipped folder, which took 2 minutes 11 seconds.
>
> This is on 64 bit Vista, with a 2.4GHx Core 2 Duo processor and 3Gb of RAM,
> and a 10,000 rpm Western Digital Raptor SATA drive; Windows Performance
> Rating 5.2.
>
> There are many, many variables which could affect performance - CPU, other
> background processes, anti-virus, filter drivers, disk IO, available memory,
> etc etc.
>
> You may be seeing a genuine problem; and I'm not suggesting Windows built-in
> zip is super-efficient - it probably isn't the fastest. But, the problem
> you're seeing is not universal. In many situations, the zip performance in
> Vista seems to be quite acceptable.
>
> You'd probably need to run some tests on your machine to see where the
> bottleneck was with that particular operation - use Perfom and add counters
> for CPU processor time, memory pages/sec, Physical disk queue length, etc.
>
> Regards,
> --
> Andrew McLaren
> amclar (at) optusnet dot com dot au
>
>
>

obscurereference wrote:
> Did anyone ever find a solution to this problem? I have a new machine
> with 2GB RAM, a very fast processor, but even with antivirus turned
> off and nothing else running, extracting , say, a 10MB zip file takes
> over 40 minutes! The transfer rate is 4k/s, so it would actually be
> quicker to download the files from a dial-up modem then extract them
> from a zip file on my machine!

Turn off your virus checker. Does that make a difference?

Turning off Remote Differential Compression (Control
Panel->Programs->Programs and Features->Turn windows features on or
off>Unheck 'remote differential compression') helped a lot for me, it's
still not quite as fast as I think it should be though. I think I heard
of a problem with the 'calculating time remaining' part of file
transfers that made it take a while to start but that was patched.


--
pxmm

I ran into this back in January with my Vista Home Premium X32 install
on my wife's Dell E520. I rolled her back to XP MCE2005, but I'm getting
ready to give the Vista install a shot again.

I have not experienced this with Vista Business x64, if anything,
operations of that nature feel faster for me. Using Windows built in
compression or 7-zip has been very snappy.


--
bob_c_b

I had the same problem, so I ditched Microsoft in favor of WinRAR. No
problems since.


"obscurereference" <obscurereference.TakeThisOut@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
message news:8CECD951-2BC4-46DF-A20F-5E402EE958B2@microsoft.com...
> Did anyone ever find a solution to this problem? I have a new machine with
> 2GB RAM, a very fast processor, but even with antivirus turned off and
> nothing else running, extracting , say, a 10MB zip file takes over 40
> minutes! The transfer rate is 4k/s, so it would actually be quicker to
> download the files from a dial-up modem then extract them from a zip file
> on
> my machine!
>
> "Andrew McLaren" wrote:
>
>> >I downloaded a 150 MB zip file from http://eclipse.org with the firefox
>> >browser on a new notebook (I'm hoping there is no adware on it yet!). I
>> >opened up a windows explorer window on the zip file and right clicked to
>> >extract the files. I got a dialog box and it said it would require 2
>> >hours
>> >to extract all the files!
>>
>> I can't repro this problem.
>>
>> I downloaded eclipse-SDK-3.3-win32.zip, 140MB, containing 1,831 items.
>>
>> In Explorer I dragged and dropped the contents from a zip file to an
>> unzipped folder, which took 2 minutes 11 seconds.
>>
>> This is on 64 bit Vista, with a 2.4GHx Core 2 Duo processor and 3Gb of
>> RAM,
>> and a 10,000 rpm Western Digital Raptor SATA drive; Windows Performance
>> Rating 5.2.
>>
>> There are many, many variables which could affect performance - CPU,
>> other
>> background processes, anti-virus, filter drivers, disk IO, available
>> memory,
>> etc etc.
>>
>> You may be seeing a genuine problem; and I'm not suggesting Windows
>> built-in
>> zip is super-efficient - it probably isn't the fastest. But, the problem
>> you're seeing is not universal. In many situations, the zip performance
>> in
>> Vista seems to be quite acceptable.
>>
>> You'd probably need to run some tests on your machine to see where the
>> bottleneck was with that particular operation - use Perfom and add
>> counters
>> for CPU processor time, memory pages/sec, Physical disk queue length,
>> etc.
>>
>> Regards,
>> --
>> Andrew McLaren
>> amclar (at) optusnet dot com dot au
>>
>>
>>

"obscurereference" <obscurereference DeleteThis @discussions.microsoft.com> wrote ...
> Did anyone ever find a solution to this problem? I have a new machine with
> 2GB RAM, a very fast processor, but even with antivirus turned off and
> nothing else running, extracting , say, a 10MB zip file takes over 40
> minutes! The transfer rate is 4k/s, so it would actually be quicker to
> download the files from a dial-up modem then extract them from a zip file
> on
> my machine!

Although you are undoubtedly seeing a problem, it is not the universal
experience for all Vista users. There is some specific or local condition
which is causing the slow performance you are seeing.

I have plenty of gripes about Vista; but speed unzipping files, is not one
of them - I can unzip quite large zip files, nice and quick on my main
machine. As I said:

>> There are many, many variables which could affect performance - CPU,
>> other
>> background processes, anti-virus, filter drivers, disk IO, available
>> memory,
>> etc etc.
>> You'd probably need to run some tests on your machine to see where the
>> bottleneck was with that particular operation - use Perfom and add
>> counters
>> for CPU processor time, memory pages/sec, Physical disk queue length,
>> etc.

Start by playing around with Perfom, and see if you can delineate the main
parameters of the slow performance.

Other folks might have better ideas, hope this helps a bit.
--
Andrew McLaren
amclar (at) optusnet dot com dot au

i have to say it took Vista nearly an hour to extract the data files off my
old machine

i wonder whether it has anything to do with Vista indexing the extracted
files one-by-one (which might not be the case if Winrar extracts them)


"Gareth" <pendlebury.DeleteThis@hotmail.co.uk> wrote in message
news:OG0wA6W%23HHA.4612@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>I had the same problem, so I ditched Microsoft in favor of WinRAR. No
>problems since.
>
>
> "obscurereference" <obscurereference.DeleteThis@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
> message news:8CECD951-2BC4-46DF-A20F-5E402EE958B2@microsoft.com...
>> Did anyone ever find a solution to this problem? I have a new machine
>> with
>> 2GB RAM, a very fast processor, but even with antivirus turned off and
>> nothing else running, extracting , say, a 10MB zip file takes over 40
>> minutes! The transfer rate is 4k/s, so it would actually be quicker to
>> download the files from a dial-up modem then extract them from a zip file
>> on
>> my machine!
>>
>> "Andrew McLaren" wrote:
>>
>>> >I downloaded a 150 MB zip file from http://eclipse.org with the firefox
>>> >browser on a new notebook (I'm hoping there is no adware on it yet!). I
>>> >opened up a windows explorer window on the zip file and right clicked
>>> >to
>>> >extract the files. I got a dialog box and it said it would require 2
>>> >hours
>>> >to extract all the files!
>>>
>>> I can't repro this problem.
>>>
>>> I downloaded eclipse-SDK-3.3-win32.zip, 140MB, containing 1,831 items.
>>>
>>> In Explorer I dragged and dropped the contents from a zip file to an
>>> unzipped folder, which took 2 minutes 11 seconds.
>>>
>>> This is on 64 bit Vista, with a 2.4GHx Core 2 Duo processor and 3Gb of
>>> RAM,
>>> and a 10,000 rpm Western Digital Raptor SATA drive; Windows Performance
>>> Rating 5.2.
>>>
>>> There are many, many variables which could affect performance - CPU,
>>> other
>>> background processes, anti-virus, filter drivers, disk IO, available
>>> memory,
>>> etc etc.
>>>
>>> You may be seeing a genuine problem; and I'm not suggesting Windows
>>> built-in
>>> zip is super-efficient - it probably isn't the fastest. But, the problem
>>> you're seeing is not universal. In many situations, the zip performance
>>> in
>>> Vista seems to be quite acceptable.
>>>
>>> You'd probably need to run some tests on your machine to see where the
>>> bottleneck was with that particular operation - use Perfom and add
>>> counters
>>> for CPU processor time, memory pages/sec, Physical disk queue length,
>>> etc.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> --
>>> Andrew McLaren
>>> amclar (at) optusnet dot com dot au
>>>
>>>
>>>
>

On Sep 17, 7:23 am, "Andrew McLaren" <and... RemoveThis @fakeaddress.com> wrote:
> "obscurereference" <obscurerefere... RemoveThis @discussions.microsoft.com> wrote ...
>
> > Did anyone ever find a solution to this problem? I have a new machine with
> > 2GB RAM, a very fast processor, but even with antivirus turned off and
> > nothing else running, extracting , say, a 10MBzipfiletakes over 40
> > minutes! The transfer rate is 4k/s, so it would actually be quicker to
> > download the files from a dial-up modem then extract them from azipfile
> > on
> > my machine!
>
> Although you are undoubtedly seeing a problem, it is not the universal
> experience for all Vista users. There is some specific or local condition
> which is causing the slow performance you are seeing.
>
> I have plenty of gripes about Vista; but speed unzipping files, is not one
> of them - I can unzip quite largezipfiles, nice and quick on my main
> machine. As I said:
>
> >> There are many, many variables which could affect performance - CPU,
> >> other
> >> background processes, anti-virus, filter drivers, disk IO, available
> >> memory,
> >> etc etc.
> >> You'd probably need to run some tests on your machine to see where the
> >> bottleneck was with that particular operation - use Perfom and add
> >> counters
> >> for CPU processor time, memory pages/sec, Physical disk queue length,
> >> etc.
>
> Start by playing around with Perfom, and see if you can delineate the main
> parameters of the slow performance.
>
> Other folks might have better ideas, hope this helps a bit.
> --
> Andrew McLaren
> amclar (at) optusnet dot com dot au

I'll chime in and say it universally frustrates me as a Vista user as
well. Vista's explorer shell has horrible problems with at least two
things: zip files, and files that are "in use" by another process even
though the other process is no longer running. I've gotten used to
the fact that whenever I try to open up or extract files from a zip
file it's a good time to go for a bathroom break. I've also gotten
used to the fact that I can't delete files when I want to, and if I
wait until after said bathroom break, I'll more than likely be able to
delete what I wanted then.

I've tried this today and the issue is not universal, I've used native
Vista compression and 7-Zip and got close to the same performance and
not specifically slower than XP. I tried one archive witha a variety of
different file formats and sizes, folder was 1GB and I compressed it
with Vista file compression and extracted it with the same and 7-Zip.

That said, I had the slow unzip issues back in January/February with
Vista 32 bit, which I don't have installed right now.


--
bob_c_b

It is a know issue that has to due with permissions.

If using something like WINZIP before you unzip the file
right click on it and select unblock. I did this yesterday and a file
that took almost a min to extract was done instantly.

HTH

Robert

"bob_c_b" <bob_c_b.2x4f81 DeleteThis @no-mx.forums.net> wrote in message
news:bob_c_b.2x4f81@no-mx.forums.net...
>
> I've tried this today and the issue is not universal, I've used native
> Vista compression and 7-Zip and got close to the same performance and
> not specifically slower than XP. I tried one archive witha a variety of
> different file formats and sizes, folder was 1GB and I compressed it
> with Vista file compression and extracted it with the same and 7-Zip.
>
> That said, I had the slow unzip issues back in January/February with
> Vista 32 bit, which I don't have installed right now.
>
>
> --
> bob_c_b

hmmm. I don't even notice files unzipping.
Just click on them and the folder opens.

--
http://get.live.com/wlmail/overview

"malcolmp" <malcolmp DeleteThis @discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:2F90B678-7A51-4392-825B-25DFEFFE4629@microsoft.com...
> I bought a new laptop this week, and unzipping files is appallingly slow.
>
> Like the original poster, eclipse was a nightmare. The spring framework
> (with approx 9500 files) had an original estimate in DAYS!!! Although this
> then came down to a 'paltry' few hours.
>
> There are posts all over the internet on this problem. It's not just an
> isolated case. I'm raging that this OS is clearly not ready.
>
> I also found that if trying to unzip a file in the same directory as one
> where unzipping is already occuring causes Explorer to throw a wobbly and
> restart.
>
> I'm so annoyed with this. I have to unzip stuff on my old XP machines,
> then
> copy across to the Vista one.
>
> Vista Schmista. Most of my developer friends are now buying MACs. I really
> wish I'd done the same. Never thought I'd say such a thing.
>
> malc
>
>
> "bob_c_b" wrote:
>
>>
>> I ran into this back in January with my Vista Home Premium X32 install
>> on my wife's Dell E520. I rolled her back to XP MCE2005, but I'm getting
>> ready to give the Vista install a shot again.
>>
>> I have not experienced this with Vista Business x64, if anything,
>> operations of that nature feel faster for me. Using Windows built in
>> compression or 7-zip has been very snappy.
>>
>>
>> --
>> bob_c_b
>>

Hi,

I've had the same problem since I have a Vista-machine (zipfolders was
working perfectly under XP).

The good news is that it looks like it will be solved with Vista-SP1.
I had the opportunity to test the latest beta (RC) version and I could
notice that unzipping with "ZipFolders" was lightning fast.

Let's hope together that it will be kept in the final SP1 release )


"malcolmp" <malcolmp.TakeThisOut@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:2F90B678-7A51-4392-825B-25DFEFFE4629@microsoft.com...
>I bought a new laptop this week, and unzipping files is appallingly slow.
>
> Like the original poster, eclipse was a nightmare. The spring framework
> (with approx 9500 files) had an original estimate in DAYS!!! Although this
> then came down to a 'paltry' few hours.
>
> There are posts all over the internet on this problem. It's not just an
> isolated case. I'm raging that this OS is clearly not ready.
>
> I also found that if trying to unzip a file in the same directory as one
> where unzipping is already occuring causes Explorer to throw a wobbly and
> restart.
>
> I'm so annoyed with this. I have to unzip stuff on my old XP machines,
> then
> copy across to the Vista one.
>
> Vista Schmista. Most of my developer friends are now buying MACs. I really
> wish I'd done the same. Never thought I'd say such a thing.
>
> malc
>
>
> "bob_c_b" wrote:
>
>>
>> I ran into this back in January with my Vista Home Premium X32 install
>> on my wife's Dell E520. I rolled her back to XP MCE2005, but I'm getting
>> ready to give the Vista install a shot again.
>>
>> I have not experienced this with Vista Business x64, if anything,
>> operations of that nature feel faster for me. Using Windows built in
>> compression or 7-zip has been very snappy.
>>
>>
>> --
>> bob_c_b
>>