Copying files on Windows XP PC is incredibly slow compared to the same operation on a Linux or Mac OS X computer. And, don’t get me started on Vista. I just bought a quad-processor box running Vista and it is slower in pretty much everything than my four year old AMD Athlon box running Windows XP.
There are probably a lot of factors involved including file handling routines, the directory management, and general code inefficiency. But, over the years I’ve added another factor: Microsoft Windows’s numerous and multiplying security issues. The real-time anti-virus and anti-spyware software we have to run to help deal with this problem has what looks like a big impact on copying files. This is especially noticeable when a lot of files are being copied.
Here’s an example: The PC I had running Vista died a few weeks ago. So, I bought a disappointingly slow quad-processor replacement (no fault of the Dell hardware, btw. The slowness is all Vista’s fault). Now, I’m taking the two hard drives from the dead PC (system board issue) and redistributing them to other desktops. I’m moving files from an old 120GB HD in my current main PC running Windows XP to a 160GB drive that came out the dead Vista box. Both are D drives (second drives). So, it is just a matter of moving data files. Copying the files from one drive to the other is taking forever because of a number of annoying factors. One is that Windows file copying is just slow. Another is that Windows stops for annoying reasons like asking if I want to copy a read-only file. Of course, I do? Why not? And, then, of course, there’s the anti-virus software doing its job by checking every file as it is copied. I’ve seen it spike to over 90% processor use during this copy process. And,it tends hover between 35 and 75% of processor use most of the time.
So, the PC is nearly unusable during a simple file copy and the file copy process itself takes an extended time because of security checks. So, the end result is hours of unproductive PC hours and draining electricity too.
Addendum: I should add that the Avast free anti-virus edition I’m using is one of the lighter weight and more efficient anti-virus solutions I’ve tried. Other anti-virus solutions noticeably slowed down my PC 100% of the time, not just during file copying.