Comments for Why didn't Vista fix my pet peeve?

Comment from Peter M on 2008-04-15

2008-04-15T22:50:59Z

What's the big deal? If you hover over a folder Vista gives you the approximate size, if you right click/ properties the folder you get it to the last byte.

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Comment from Natalie Kehr on 2008-04-12

2008-04-12T07:19:01Z

I am a compulsive feedback giver - I don't feel I can grumble unless I have given people the opportunity to rectify matters. I have never managed to give Microsoft any feedback. Only people who pay for additional support appear able to speak to them.

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Comment from Ken B on 2008-04-10

2008-04-10T19:01:42Z

Then there are people like me who want the exact opposite of what you give as an example. I want to know the exact byte size of a file, and "127KB" isn't accurate enough, and "2.3GB" even less so. (For example, someone uses ftp to copy a file between Windows and Unix, and I need them to verify that they used binary mode and the file size didn't change.) Yes, I can have them right-click and select "properties", or drop to a command prompt, but "why should I have to?"

On a side note, explorer isn't consistent in displaying file sizes. For example, I have a document that is 30,807 bytes in size. Explorer shows "31KB" in the listing, "30KB" if you hover over the filename, and "30.0K" if you select "properties".

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A comment on: Why didn't Vista fix my pet peeve?

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Comment from Simon on 2008-04-10

2008-04-10T16:22:17Z

As to why Explorer doesn't show folder size, I quote Raymond Chen of The Old New Thing:

"[Explorer doesn't recursively show folder size as an optional column for] the same reason \\ does not autocomplete to all the computers on the network (see http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2005/01/11/350628.aspx): Because it would destroy corporate networks.

Showing folder sizes "all the time" means that when you open, say, the root of a large server, Explorer would start running around recursively enumerating every single directory on the server in order to compute the folder sizes. One person doing this to a server is bad enough. Imagine if hundreds of people did it simultaneously: The server would be hammered continously.

Even worse: imagine doing this across a limited-bandwidth link like a VPN or an overseas link. The link would be saturated with file enumerations and wouldn't have any bandwidth remaining for "real work". Even the change-notifications that Explorer registers are cause for much hair-pulling on corporate networks. (See http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=330929 -- and these are change-notifications, which are passive.)

Even on a home computer, computing folder sizes automatically is is still not a good idea. How would you like it if opening a folder caused Explorer to start churning your disk computing all the folder sizes recursively? (Then again, maybe you don't mind, in which case, go nuts: http://blogs.msdn.com/noahc/archive/2007/02/26/folder-size-for-windows-explorer.aspx)

Of course, the question sidesteps the question the linked article -- http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2004/12/28/336219.aspx#345978 -- tries to address, namely, "What do you mean by the size of a directory anyway?" "

Source: http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2007/10/29/5750353.aspx

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A comment on: Why didn't Vista fix my pet peeve?

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