I'm working on setting up a Win98SE box, and noticed that getting "Properties" on big files was really slow, i.e., it would take almost 3 (!!) minutes on a 100 meg file. After going back with ghost images and some selective installs, I determined that the slow down happens after installing "Main Updates (All Updates and Hotfixes)".

Questions: does anyone know which particular update is causing this? Would it be possible to make that an optional install, or subsequently remove it?

The computer is a 200 MHz Cyrix w/128 meg of SDRAM and 6.4 Gig Bigfoot drive (I know it's sloOow). Getting the "Properties" of the same file before installing main updates takes only a couple of seconds. That means that something is now scans the whole file!!

That happens on my 98se system as well.

It's just the property sheet handler scanning through the file looking for specific properties. E.g. some EXE files have a Version information tab in the property sheet.

But that property sheet handler has been registered for *, so all files get scanned for properties. On my machine it's named {3EA48300-8CF6-101B-84FB-666CCB9BCD32}.

Moving that one to only the EXE, DLL, and other files that can have extended properties would probably solve your problem.

Thanks, I just removed PropertySheetHandler, and that fixed it.

Wierd: I can take properties on 2 Gb files (avi) and it comes instantly. of course my machine is 10x faster than a 200mhz but still...

Wierd: I can take properties on 2 Gb files (avi) and it comes instantly. of course my machine is 10x faster than a 200mhz but still...

That means that you probably don't have the property sheet handler installed for *.

That happens on my 98se system as well.

But that property sheet handler has been registered for *, so all files get scanned for properties. On my machine it's named {3EA48300-8CF6-101B-84FB-666CCB9BCD32}.

I was reading the thread through, as I have/had the same problem... long pauses when checking the properties of large files...

After a little research of my own, I found that it wasn't...

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\PropertySheetHandlers\{3EA48300-8CF6-101B-84FB-666CCB9BCD32}]

@=""

that was causing the long pause...

instead, it was...

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\PropertySheetHandlers\CryptoSignMenu]

@="{7444C719-39BF-11D1-8CD9-00C04FC29D45}"

(which scans for Digital Signatures on all files) that was causing the long pause.

After exporting and deleting that key, the long pauses were gone.

I then went through and added that entry to just the File Types I thought would use Digital Signatures:

REGEDIT4

//The first entry deletes the CryptoSignMenu sub-key under the * key.

[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\PropertySheetHandlers\CryptoSignMenu]
@="{7444C719-39BF-11D1-8CD9-00C04FC29D45}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\dllfile\shellex\PropertySheetHandlers\CryptoSignMenu]
@="{7444C719-39BF-11D1-8CD9-00C04FC29D45}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shellex\PropertySheetHandlers\CryptoSignMenu]
@="{7444C719-39BF-11D1-8CD9-00C04FC29D45}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ocxfile\shellex\PropertySheetHandlers\CryptoSignMenu]
@="{7444C719-39BF-11D1-8CD9-00C04FC29D45}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\vxdfile\shellex\PropertySheetHandlers\CryptoSignMenu]
@="{7444C719-39BF-11D1-8CD9-00C04FC29D45}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\drvfile\shellex\PropertySheetHandlers\CryptoSignMenu]
@="{7444C719-39BF-11D1-8CD9-00C04FC29D45}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\sysfile\shellex\PropertySheetHandlers\CryptoSignMenu]
@="{7444C719-39BF-11D1-8CD9-00C04FC29D45}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AXfile\shellex\PropertySheetHandlers\CryptoSignMenu]
@="{7444C719-39BF-11D1-8CD9-00C04FC29D45}"

Here's a zip of the Registry entries above if anyone is interested:

CryptoSignMenu_delete_add.zip

Hope this helps anyone experiencing the problem .

If anyone can add to the File Types that might use Digital Signatures... please add them to this thread.

Also, if any of these File Types aren't needed, please let me know.

Edited February 17, 200620 yr by whatever420

Thanks for the investigation, I guess I need to revisit my current solution. I'm not sure ifWin98 has it, but .sec also signed with digital certificates, especially since the extension is derived from 'secure'.