I have a local computer running Windows 7 Ultimate. This computer is operating as a server for a small, 3 computer, peer-to-peer network. It also operates as a desktop computer for a local user. This computer has plenty of power, as it is running a server motherboard, dual Xeon processors, 8GB of RAM, and dual SCSI hard drives. Here is the problem. The computer (herein referred to as the server) has two partitions on the hard drives, defined as C: and E:, that are obviously local to the server. There are some logically defined folders that are setup as 4 different drive letters to the network. So, to make sure everything is clear, the K:, H:, G:, and P: drives are local folders to the server, but they are shared as network drives to the rest of the network. Now, this same server used to be on Windows XP (x64). When it was on XP, the K:, H:, G:, and P: drives could be accesses as K:, H:, G:, and P: from My Computer or Windows Explorer with no problems. The files would pop right up and load the corresponding Office program or picture viewing program within a couple of seconds. With Windows 7 Ultimate, if I use My Computer or Windows Explorer to attempt to open any of these files from the K:, H: G:, or P: drive, it will take 30 to 45 seconds to open the file and "download" it to the computer. My question is this, why is it "downloading" from the hard drive that is local to the computer? Why does it take so much longer than it used to with XP? If I open the files directly from the E: drive (where they physically reside) they open right up just like they are supposed to. Therefore, why when I attempt to open them using the mapped drive letter, do they take so long in Windows 7 when I could open them using the mapped drive letter in XP? This isn't actually my equipment, but one of my client's pieces of equipment. He is very upset that he spent almost $1000 to upgrade his computers to Windows 7, only to have this kind of problem. When I showed him he could open the files with the E: drive, he agreed that this would be a "temporary workaround" but he would much prefer to open the files using the K:, H:, G:, or P: drives, just like he did in Windows XP. I look forward to hearing back from you. Thank you, Bookless

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Hello Arthur, The folders are defined as network drives to the network. I shared them and assigned them as drive letters. They are actually on a separate drive on the same server and they are accessible using Windows Explorer. The C: drive is the Windows drive and the E: drive is the physical data drive. The E: drive folders are shared as P:\, H:\, G:\, and K:, but they are logically these drives. Therefore my question is why, if the user on the server uses Windows Explorer to the E:\ drive then drills down to the data, the data files open quickly, within a couple of seconds. If he uses Windows Explorer and drills down to the K:\ drive (logically K:\, physically E:\) then the data has to "download" and it takes 25-30 seconds to open the same file. He used to do this same thing in Windows XP, use the K:\ drive and Windows Explorer, and it worked fine. The system has been upgraded from Windows XP to Windows 7, it is not a dual-boot system. Would the upgrade have caused this issue? I am going to try the same configuration on my system and see if I can replicate the problem, only I am going to do a clean boot of Windows 7. Thanks, Bookless

Bookless wrote: I have a local computer running Windows 7 Ultimate.  This computer is operating as a server for a small, 3 computer, peer-to-peer network.  It also operates as a desktop computer for a local user.  This computer has plenty of power, as it is running a server motherboard, dual Xeon processors, 8GB of RAM, and dual SCSI hard drives.  Here is the problem.   The computer (herein referred to as the server) has two partitions on the hard drives, defined as C: and E:, that are obviously local to the server.  There are some logically defined folders that are setup as 4 different drive letters to the network.  So, to make sure everything is clear, the K:, H:, G:, and P: drives are local folders to the server, but they are shared as network drives to the rest of the network. Now, this same server used to be on Windows XP (x64).  When it was on XP, the K:, H:, G:, and P: drives could be accesses as K:, H:, G:, and P: from My Computer or Windows Explorer with no problems.  The files would pop right up and load the corresponding Office program or picture viewing program within a couple of seconds.   With Windows 7 Ultimate, if I use My Computer or Windows Explorer to attempt to open any of these files from the K:, H: G:, or P: drive, it will take 30 to 45 seconds to open the file and "download" it to the computer.  My question is this, why is it "downloading" from the hard drive that is local to the computer?  Why does it take so much longer than it used to with XP?  If I open the files directly from the E: drive (where they physically reside) they open right up just like they are supposed to.  Therefore, why when I attempt to open them using the mapped drive letter, do they take so long in Windows 7 when I could open them using the mapped drive letter in XP? This isn't actually my equipment, but one of my client's pieces of equipment.  He is very upset that he spent almost $1000 to upgrade his computers to Windows 7, only to have this kind of problem.  When I showed him he could open the files with the E: drive, he agreed that this would be a "temporary workaround" but he would much prefer to open the files using the K:, H:, G:, or P: drives, just like he did in Windows XP. I look forward to hearing back from you. Thank you, Bookless   I suspect something wrong in your network setup. First if you open a network path - even if it is situated on your local computer - you will go over the network to this path. This was the same on WinXP64 as it is in Win7. Nevertheless if you are opening a file on a network drive, this should be quite quick if the file isn't extremely big especially if you are not going over the wire really. What is the size of the files you are trying to open? For setting aside Windows Explorer issues, can you try to open the same files from a cmd-prompt, to see if this is working noticeably quicker? Wolfgang

Bookless wrote: I have a local computer running Windows 7 Ultimate.  This computer is operating as a server for a small, 3 computer, peer-to-peer network.  It also operates as a desktop computer for a local user.  This computer has plenty of power, as it is running a server motherboard, dual Xeon processors, 8GB of RAM, and dual SCSI hard drives.  Here is the problem.   The computer (herein referred to as the server) has two partitions on the hard drives, defined as C: and E:, that are obviously local to the server.  There are some logically defined folders that are setup as 4 different drive letters to the network.  So, to make sure everything is clear, the K:, H:, G:, and P: drives are local folders to the server, but they are shared as network drives to the rest of the network. Now, this same server used to be on Windows XP (x64).  When it was on XP, the K:, H:, G:, and P: drives could be accesses as K:, H:, G:, and P: from My Computer or Windows Explorer with no problems.  The files would pop right up and load the corresponding Office program or picture viewing program within a couple of seconds.   With Windows 7 Ultimate, if I use My Computer or Windows Explorer to attempt to open any of these files from the K:, H: G:, or P: drive, it will take 30 to 45 seconds to open the file and "download" it to the computer.  My question is this, why is it "downloading" from the hard drive that is local to the computer?  Why does it take so much longer than it used to with XP?  If I open the files directly from the E: drive (where they physically reside) they open right up just like they are supposed to.  Therefore, why when I attempt to open them using the mapped drive letter, do they take so long in Windows 7 when I could open them using the mapped drive letter in XP? This isn't actually my equipment, but one of my client's pieces of equipment.  He is very upset that he spent almost $1000 to upgrade his computers to Windows 7, only to have this kind of problem.  When I showed him he could open the files with the E: drive, he agreed that this would be a "temporary workaround" but he would much prefer to open the files using the K:, H:, G:, or P: drives, just like he did in Windows XP. I look forward to hearing back from you. Thank you, Bookless   I suspect something wrong in your network setup. First if you open a network path - even if it is situated on your local computer - you will go over the network to this path. This was the same on WinXP64 as it is in Win7. Nevertheless if you are opening a file on a network drive, this should be quite quick if the file isn't extremely big especially if you are not going over the wire really. What is the size of the files you are trying to open? For setting aside Windows Explorer issues, can you try to open the same files from a cmd-prompt, to see if this is working noticeably quicker? Wolfgang

Wolfgang, I apologize for not getting back to you sooner, but I found it was the Symantec anti-virus causing the issue. The problem ended up being that every time Windows accessed the network, the anti-virus wanted to do a complete scan on the remote folders. I found a check box inside of Symantec describing this very issue, unchecked it, and now the network is running much, much better. At first the user was concerned about this solution but once I explained to him that each computer had the same version of Symantec on it, all of them were up to date and operational, that the server system did not need to scan the remote systems. The remote systems were taking care of themselves so the AV scans were being redundant. Again, I thank you for your response and I will do much better at keeping up on my threads in the future. Regards, Book