Dell computer help...

Hi I have a Windows XP computer and love it. I've had it since 2006 but I have been using a lot of folders for my photo's, graphics etc. I have checked the help and support website but have not found an answer to my question. Maybe you can help

How many photo's, graphics etc. can I put into one folder? I think I have about 25 so far in one of the folders. How will I know when it is full. Hope someone can help, thanks.

A GAZILLION!

I don't think you can ever "fill" a folder, it's just a way of categorizing your files so that they are easy for you to see. It has nothing to do with where they are stored on the hard-disk (although that is the point of defragmenting, to put commonly used files together).

For example I have my "Lucas" folder, which then has a folder with each month (so 1. one month old (april) or 17. seventeen months old (september)) and each of those easily have over 100 photos in them. He's a well photographed child...

Thanks for your help, by the way I never defragged since I'm not sure how. I heard it was a big deal tho.

It's not a BIG deal but it can improve your computer's performance.

Support.Microsoft

1. Open My Computer.
2. Right-click the local disk volume that you want to defragment, and then click Properties.
3. On the Tools tab, click Defragment Now.
4. Click Defragment.

Click to expand...

The "local disk volume" would be your C drive (unless you've given it another name).

You probably want to do it before you go to bed, if you've NEVER done it the defrag will probably take a few hours. I have mine set to go off every Wednesday at 2am.

While you're giving your computer a tune-up a registry cleaner is a good idea:

http://www.ccleaner.com/

CCleaner will get rid of old bits of data your computer doesn't need to keep, like parts of old deleted programs, your Internet cookies & such. This one is free & contains no spy/ad-ware.

I my windows too, there is no shame in it! We may not be as "cool" as mac but at least we're compatible

Thanks again so much, I c/p this to my Word. I also printed it out and when I feel I have enough nerve to do it, I will try it :-)

I'm assuming your NTSF and not FAT32? Is so the answer is this, though it lists for FATs, too. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/l.../cc938432.aspx

BUT, it's not ideal to have that many files in one big folder as it will cause some slow down, explorer will probably crash if you throw too much at it. If you are going to have a lot in one folder, switch it to list view and you shouldn't have previews on either (that may have been turned off in XP eventually - there was an exploit at one point).

Do defrag. Parts of files get jumbled up and left over. Years of this will leave you with a very messy hard drive and your OS not running as fast as it should. Defragging will get rid of leftover bits of deleted files and reorganize everything to be read more efficiently.

Thanks for the info and link but I am not computer savvy and that was all Greek to me. Now I'm just confused yet again.

Originally Posted by LaRussa

Thanks for the info and link but I am not computer savvy and that was all Greek to me. Now I'm just confused yet again.

Click to expand...

If you don't know something look it up instead of giving up. That's the only way to ever learn anything. Everyone starts somewhere and putting yourself down does you no good.

(2^32) -1 is over 4 billion, btw, and refers to how many files you can have per harddrive or partition. So you could have one folder with 4 billion files (I doubt any programs can handle this, though) or you could have multiple folders that all together add up to 4 billion.

I did try looking this up in the help and support. Maybe I should've checked out Google. Thanks again.

Google can be missleading though, especially if you're not computer-savy :S.

I've actually looked up an answer to this question before (out of general curiosity) and got no where asking the internet. I had to ask my computer teacher (it was awhile ago).

There area a few microsoft specific forums that can be quite helpful - but we're happy to help too .

The secret to looking things up is to know how. Minus signs to take out useless words that keep coming up in results, plus sign to make sure something is included, enclosing phrases with " " to look for that specific phrase, and so on.
Using these make all the difference.

For computer stuff it helps if you know some of the basic terms. It should be easy to find sites that list terms and computer parts.


The real fun comes when you try finding obscure medical info via google. You'll find so much useless garbage. Then again, the hunt is half the fun for me.

Hi I just wanted you to know I just did a defrag of my C drive and it took less than an hour. It did not tho defrag all my files and it gave me a list of what files could not be defraged. Is that normal?? Am I supposed to defrag other files other than the C drive. Thanks for your help in this but not sure why it didn't take all that long to do. Let me know what you think.

I did follow your instructions and did a defrag but not all files were able to defrag for some reason. Please see the last msg. I left for strangewings, thanks.

LR It sounds like you're not a heavy computer user so I'm sure it's just fine that it only took an hour . Yes it's perfectly normal for not all files to be able to defrag. Partly because you've got programs running (that are using those files) while you defrag and because some are read-only and can't be moved. .

You can defrag as often as you like but I wouldn't worry about doing it for awhile - again you sound like a pretty light-user .

Unless you've added a second hard-drive you don't need to defrag any other drive. On a normal computer you have a CD/DVD drive and your hard-disk.

Congrats! You're officially on your way to computer nerd-dom, it's a slippery slope!

Actually I'm on the puter every day. I go to a couple of websites daily. Have photo's on photobucket, use spreadsheets etc. Of course it may not be as much as others. I was shocked the defrag lasted just about an hour, I thought something was wrong :-) Next I will try the cleaner, see how that goes. Thanks again, really appreciate the help I'm getting here.

This cleaner is not free so I will pass on this.

The ccleaner? Yes it is There is an option to donate if you wish.

http://www.ccleaner.com/download

Just click "download from filehippo.com" they don't ask for any money or personal information.

Originally Posted by Nes

On a normal computer you have a CD/DVD drive and your hard-disk.

Click to expand...

A normal Windows computer really should have it's hard drives in separate partitions. I wish manufacturers would send them all that way ( I know Sony did in the past...).
No other option but to partition mine up, it requests it on install as it's needed to have your swap, root, var, home, and even temp divided up. (temp is debatable - it depends on what's disabled).


If one really likes a challenge (or not - it's simple enough) they can edit their registry manually. Whether using a program to do it or doing it manually, always make a registry backup before proceeding.

SW don't overwhelm LR too much! One step at a time

My HP came up with a back-up hard-drive really nice to have that already installed. Then with Vista on top of that it's sort of already segmented with out it being done the way I did my XP.

Well, it was a bit more aimed at you and just commenting in general. I'm prone to rambling whenever I get on a topic of interest, so unless I directly answer one of her questions she can tune me out.

That is nice that you had an extra HD. I've built my PCs for years - I literally went from knowing nothing about computers to learning everything I could and building them. I'm used to sticking whatever I want, or at least what I can afford, in mine.