For the last two days, some programs and some files are taking a very long time to open and close on
my Windows 7 computer. (Firefox and Thunderbird seem to work OK.) Even worse is that sending
anything to my wireless printer takes at least 12 seconds in all programs.

I checked Devices and Printers and found an error symbol at the computer icon. When I double-clicked
the icon, I got: “Network processing is timed out. Check the scanner and network status. Scanner
driver will be terminated.”

I right-clicked the icon and chose troubleshooting, which showed: “Reinstall device driver. There is
a problem with the driver for Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface. Reinstalling the driver might fix
this problem.”

I’m nervous about having Microsoft install a driver. Should I do this? Should I do something else? I
did try turning off the computer, setting the wireless switch to off, and turning on the computer.
No change.

Thank you.

Jo-Anne

On 10/16/2022 9:31 AM, Jo-Anne wrote:
> For the last two days, some programs and some files are taking a very long time to open and close on
> my Windows 7 computer. (Firefox and Thunderbird seem to work OK.) Even worse is that sending
> anything to my wireless printer takes at least 12 seconds in all programs.
>
> I checked Devices and Printers and found an error symbol at the computer icon. When I double-clicked
> the icon, I got: “Network processing is timed out. Check the scanner and network status. Scanner
> driver will be terminated.”
>
> I right-clicked the icon and chose troubleshooting, which showed: “Reinstall device driver. There is
> a problem with the driver for Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface. Reinstalling the driver might fix
> this problem.”
>
> I’m nervous about having Microsoft install a driver. Should I do this? Should I do something else? I
> did try turning off the computer, setting the wireless switch to off, and turning on the computer.
> No change.
>
> Thank you.
>
> Jo-Anne
>

Open Task Manager. (If you do not know how, right-click on the task bar
at the bottom of your desktop window and select Start Task Manager.)
Select the Processes tab. On the Processes pane, select the column
headers for CPU and then CPU Time to see what processes are consuming
the most time. (You might have to select a column header twice to get
largest-to-mallest sorting.) Is there something running that should not
be? Can you safely terminate it?

While Task Manager is open, select the Services tab. (I prefer
Nirsoft's ServWin application from
<https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/serviwin.html>.) Are there unnecessary
services running? If so stop them.

Do a virus scan with a current set of virus definitions. If you have
more than one anti-virus application, do each one, one at a time.
Viruses can consume excessive computer resources. Did the scan find any?

--
David E. Ross
<http://www.rossde.com/>

Donald Trump demands that he be declared the winner of
the 2020 presidential election. Otherwise, he demands
that the election be rerun immediately.

What has he been smoking?

Jo-Anne <Jo-Anne@nowhere.com> wrote:

> For the last two days, some programs and some files are taking a very
> long time to open and close on my Windows 7 computer. (Firefox and
> Thunderbird seem to work OK.) Even worse is that sending anything to
> my wireless printer takes at least 12 seconds in all programs.
>
> I checked Devices and Printers and found an error symbol at the
> computer icon. When I double-clicked the icon, I got: “Network
> processing is timed out. Check the scanner and network status.
> Scanner driver will be terminated.”
>
> I right-clicked the icon and chose troubleshooting, which showed:
> “Reinstall device driver. There is a problem with the driver for
> Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface. Reinstalling the driver might fix
> this problem.”
>
> I’m nervous about having Microsoft install a driver. Should I do
> this? Should I do something else? I did try turning off the computer,
> setting the wireless switch to off, and turning on the computer. No
> change.

Have you yet rebooted to reload Windows? Despite some updates not
requiring or declaring a reboot is necessary, an update can mix the
state of files until a reboot when the old files get deleted, and the
newer files get used. Try a reboot.

Whose anti-virus/malware software do you use? More than 1 of them
active at the same time?

On 10/16/2022 5:56 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
> Jo-Anne <Jo-Anne@nowhere.com> wrote:
>
>> For the last two days, some programs and some files are taking a very
>> long time to open and close on my Windows 7 computer. (Firefox and
>> Thunderbird seem to work OK.) Even worse is that sending anything to
>> my wireless printer takes at least 12 seconds in all programs.
>>
>> I checked Devices and Printers and found an error symbol at the
>> computer icon. When I double-clicked the icon, I got: “Network
>> processing is timed out. Check the scanner and network status.
>> Scanner driver will be terminated.”
>>
>> I right-clicked the icon and chose troubleshooting, which showed:
>> “Reinstall device driver. There is a problem with the driver for
>> Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface. Reinstalling the driver might fix
>> this problem.”
>>
>> I’m nervous about having Microsoft install a driver. Should I do
>> this? Should I do something else? I did try turning off the computer,
>> setting the wireless switch to off, and turning on the computer. No
>> change.
>
> Have you yet rebooted to reload Windows? Despite some updates not
> requiring or declaring a reboot is necessary, an update can mix the
> state of files until a reboot when the old files get deleted, and the
> newer files get used. Try a reboot.
>
> Whose anti-virus/malware software do you use? More than 1 of them
> active at the same time?

Yes, anti-virus applications can indeed impact performance. That is why
I suggested -- if you have more than one -- doing scans one at a time.

--
David E. Ross
<http://www.rossde.com/>

Donald Trump demands that he be declared the winner of
the 2020 presidential election. Otherwise, he demands
that the election be rerun immediately.

What has he been smoking?

"David E. Ross" <nobody@notme.invalid> wrote:

> On 10/16/2022 5:56 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
>> Jo-Anne <Jo-Anne@nowhere.com> wrote:
>>
>>> For the last two days, some programs and some files are taking a very
>>> long time to open and close on my Windows 7 computer. (Firefox and
>>> Thunderbird seem to work OK.) Even worse is that sending anything to
>>> my wireless printer takes at least 12 seconds in all programs.
>>>
>>> I checked Devices and Printers and found an error symbol at the
>>> computer icon. When I double-clicked the icon, I got: “Network
>>> processing is timed out. Check the scanner and network status.
>>> Scanner driver will be terminated.”
>>>
>>> I right-clicked the icon and chose troubleshooting, which showed:
>>> “Reinstall device driver. There is a problem with the driver for
>>> Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface. Reinstalling the driver might fix
>>> this problem.”
>>>
>>> I’m nervous about having Microsoft install a driver. Should I do
>>> this? Should I do something else? I did try turning off the computer,
>>> setting the wireless switch to off, and turning on the computer. No
>>> change.
>>
>> Have you yet rebooted to reload Windows? Despite some updates not
>> requiring or declaring a reboot is necessary, an update can mix the
>> state of files until a reboot when the old files get deleted, and the
>> newer files get used. Try a reboot.
>>
>> Whose anti-virus/malware software do you use? More than 1 of them
>> active at the same time?
>
> Yes, anti-virus applications can indeed impact performance. That is why
> I suggested -- if you have more than one -- doing scans one at a time.

If more than one AV is installed, only ONE should be enabled for
on-access (real-time) scanning. The other should be configured for
on-demand scanning only, and used as a 2nd opinion manual scanner.
No more than one AV should be active at a time.

In fact, some AVs are a bit rude. Even if you disable their on-access
scanner, they leave their rootkit-style stacked filter driver enabled,
so file I/O still goes through their driver. You think you've disabled
the AV, but file traffic still passes through its stacked file driver.
The only way I discovered that behavior was with Resplendence's Sanity
Check tool which showed processes sharing the same hooks. I used their
prior hook analyzer too, but they dropped it, and I had to switch to
their Sanity Check tool. Sometimes the order of stacked drivers is
important, sometimes not, so if a stacked driver is left behind it can
affect other processes with the same hook.

Although the stacked file I/O driver should be dormant, it can still
cause interference with other processes sharting the same hook. I think
it was SAS (SuperAntiSpyware) that left its stacked file I/O driver
loaded, even after a reboot of Windows, when the user thought they had
disable on-access protection. As I recall, I was back on Windows XP.
Defender was removed because it was worthless. All it did back then was
scan for spyware, not malware. While trialing different products, I had
both SAS and Avast installed. SAS was supposedly configured as a 2nd
opinion manually instigated scanner, and Avast was the on-access
scanner. My system slowed to a crawl. In ProcMon, I saw something like
20 THOUSAND, or more, accesses on a file write. Avast would scan the
file on a write, then SAS would get triggered to scan the same file
despite it was configured NOT to be active, Avast got trigger to rescan,
SAS got triggered to rescan, and on it continued. At some point, one or
both gave up rescanning the same file. This caused extreme slowdown of
my computer until I uninstalled SAS, and delete all the remnant file and
registry entries. On reboot, my computer was speedy again. This
prompted me to investigate which required reinstalling SAS and using
forensic tools to determine the cause of slowdown which happened again
in the SAS+Avast setup. Getting rid of SAS's stacked file I/O driver
(although SAS had been supposedly disabled) eliminate the conflict.

So, even though you should have only one AV active at a time, and other
AVs stay inactive (no on-access scanning) until you do a manual scan as
a 2nd opinion, just the presence of an AV when supposedly inactive can
conflict with other AVs. They dig pretty deep into the OS, and their
authors don't cooperate since they are commercial efforts. I've even
run into problems having MalwareBytes AntiMalware (MBAM) installed but
configured for on-demand only interfering with Defender. I gave up
analyzing the problems with multiple AVs, and just go with one now.

On 10/16/2022 12:31 PM, Jo-Anne wrote:
> For the last two days, some programs and some files are taking a very long time to open and close on my Windows 7 computer. (Firefox and Thunderbird seem to work OK.) Even worse is that sending anything to my wireless printer takes at least 12 seconds in all programs.
>
> I checked Devices and Printers and found an error symbol at the computer icon. When I double-clicked the icon, I got: “Network processing is timed out. Check the scanner and network status. Scanner driver will be terminated.”
>
> I right-clicked the icon and chose troubleshooting, which showed: “Reinstall device driver. There is a problem with the driver for Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface. Reinstalling the driver might fix this problem.”
>
> I’m nervous about having Microsoft install a driver. Should I do this? Should I do something else? I did try turning off the computer, setting the wireless switch to off, and turning on the computer. No change.
>
> Thank you.
>
> Jo-Anne

You can see answers like this, in a Google. But
the question would be, is there a complete tutorial
so you can set everything up.

That might be the benefit of "installing" Teredo (a kind of
filter driver, inserted into networking stack, and not a
real hardware driver as such). The installer might issue the
commands for setting the state of the filter.

I recollect Teredo was described at one point as "deprecated",
but I'm not really sure if that's the case or not. It was using
Microsoft servers, to convert IPV4 encapsulations from a user,
into IPV6 packets on the Internet.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/xbox/forum/all/teredo/da374600-34bf-4a88-be7c-b9dfc3bfa631

netsh interface Teredo show state

Typ : disabled
Server Name : win1711.ipv6.microsoft.com.
CLient Refresh Interval : 20 seconds
Client Port : unspecified
State : offline
Error : None

netsh interface Teredo set state type=default
netsh interface Teredo set state client

netsh interface Teredo set state client clientport=[60209] # A range of ports, no guarantees on
# collisions when you do this. Port usage
# is not policed about 1024.

# This isn't really a good idea, selecting a random server
# on the Internet for the service. A gamer was using this
# server in Finland, for de-capsulation.

netsh int teredo set state servername=teredo.trex.fi

It's a protocol. It seems to tunnel out of the computer,
to an external node. Maybe it has something to do with
running an IPV4-only router, but I'm not really sure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teredo_tunneling

"Teredo operates using a platform independent tunneling protocol
that provides IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) connectivity by
encapsulating IPv6 datagram packets within IPv4 User Datagram Protocol
(UDP) packets. Teredo routes these datagrams on the IPv4 Internet and
through NAT devices. Teredo nodes elsewhere on the IPv6 network
(called Teredo relays) receive the packets, un-encapsulate them,
and pass them on.

Teredo is a temporary measure. In the long term, all IPv6 hosts should
use native IPv6 connectivity. Teredo should be disabled when native IPv6
connectivity becomes available. Christian Huitema developed Teredo at
Microsoft, and the IETF standardized it as RFC 4380. The Teredo server
listens on UDP port 3544."

Why do people have to screw around like this ? Dunno.
The word "XBox" seems to show up in a lot of these discussions. Weird.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/eqaskd/xbox_networking_blockedteredo_unqualified/

I would be stumped, on where to start. I would not want to throw
commands at it, unless I knew *why* I had to do this :-/

Paul

On Sun, 16 Oct 2022 11:31:07 -0500, Jo-Anne <Jo-Anne@nowhere.com>
wrote:

>For the last two days, some programs and some files are taking a very long time to open and close on
>my Windows 7 computer. (Firefox and Thunderbird seem to work OK.) Even worse is that sending
>anything to my wireless printer takes at least 12 seconds in all programs.
>

In addition to all the other advice, check your hard-disks. A lot of
difficult to reproduce slow-downs can be traced back to a failing
disk. There are a variety of free disk-checking tools which will let
you see the SMART diagnostic information on your disks

(I personally like Crystal DiskInfo but I don't know if it's the best
and, if not, I'm sure others can recommend similar programs.
https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskinfo/)

In particular, you want to look at the Reallocated Sectors count since
that's a prime indicator of a failing disk.

It may not be a dying hard-drive, but you might as well tick it off as
a potential problem before you begin tinkering with drivers and
configuration settings.

On 10/16/2022 5:28 PM, David E. Ross wrote:
> On 10/16/2022 9:31 AM, Jo-Anne wrote:
>> For the last two days, some programs and some files are taking a very long time to open and close on
>> my Windows 7 computer. (Firefox and Thunderbird seem to work OK.) Even worse is that sending
>> anything to my wireless printer takes at least 12 seconds in all programs.
>>
>> I checked Devices and Printers and found an error symbol at the computer icon. When I double-clicked
>> the icon, I got: “Network processing is timed out. Check the scanner and network status. Scanner
>> driver will be terminated.”
>>
>> I right-clicked the icon and chose troubleshooting, which showed: “Reinstall device driver. There is
>> a problem with the driver for Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface. Reinstalling the driver might fix
>> this problem.”
>>
>> I’m nervous about having Microsoft install a driver. Should I do this? Should I do something else? I
>> did try turning off the computer, setting the wireless switch to off, and turning on the computer.
>> No change.
>>
>> Thank you.
>>
>> Jo-Anne
>>
>
> Open Task Manager. (If you do not know how, right-click on the task bar
> at the bottom of your desktop window and select Start Task Manager.)
> Select the Processes tab. On the Processes pane, select the column
> headers for CPU and then CPU Time to see what processes are consuming
> the most time. (You might have to select a column header twice to get
> largest-to-mallest sorting.) Is there something running that should not
> be? Can you safely terminate it?
>
> While Task Manager is open, select the Services tab. (I prefer
> Nirsoft's ServWin application from
> <https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/serviwin.html>.) Are there unnecessary
> services running? If so stop them.
>
> Do a virus scan with a current set of virus definitions. If you have
> more than one anti-virus application, do each one, one at a time.
> Viruses can consume excessive computer resources. Did the scan find any?
>

Thank you, David. The first thing I did was a full virus scan with the latest definitions. I use
only Avira (free version) on this computer; the scan took a few hours and reported that there were
no viruses. I've checked Task Manager several times during the worst of the efforts to open files or
print. CPU usage is between 19 and 30%, and the main process seems to be svchost.exe. Nothing looks
different from normal. Lots of processes that seem unnecessary (e.g., why would Macrium Reflect need
to be running when I'm not using it?) but have never slowed the computer before.

--
Jo-Anne

On 10/16/2022 7:56 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
> Jo-Anne <Jo-Anne@nowhere.com> wrote:
>
>> For the last two days, some programs and some files are taking a very
>> long time to open and close on my Windows 7 computer. (Firefox and
>> Thunderbird seem to work OK.) Even worse is that sending anything to
>> my wireless printer takes at least 12 seconds in all programs.
>>
>> I checked Devices and Printers and found an error symbol at the
>> computer icon. When I double-clicked the icon, I got: “Network
>> processing is timed out. Check the scanner and network status.
>> Scanner driver will be terminated.”
>>
>> I right-clicked the icon and chose troubleshooting, which showed:
>> “Reinstall device driver. There is a problem with the driver for
>> Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface. Reinstalling the driver might fix
>> this problem.”
>>
>> I’m nervous about having Microsoft install a driver. Should I do
>> this? Should I do something else? I did try turning off the computer,
>> setting the wireless switch to off, and turning on the computer. No
>> change.
>
> Have you yet rebooted to reload Windows? Despite some updates not
> requiring or declaring a reboot is necessary, an update can mix the
> state of files until a reboot when the old files get deleted, and the
> newer files get used. Try a reboot.
>
> Whose anti-virus/malware software do you use? More than 1 of them
> active at the same time?

I've rebooted several times, once with the network switch set to off. No change. I haven't updated
any programs recently. I use only Avira (free version). It shows no viruses.

--
Jo-Anne

In article <tik44i$3gb5m$1@dont-email.me>, Jo-Anne@nowhere.com (Jo-Anne) wrote:

> why would Macrium Reflect need to be running when I'm not using it?

Part of Macrium runs in the background at Windows startup. You can right-click on
a Macrium backup file in Windows file selector and allocate a drive letter to it.
It will then be shown as another "Hard Drive" in Windows with the same folder
hierarchy as the drive that you backed up to it. You can open the backup "drive"
and copy files straight out of it just like a normal disk drive.
--
Regards
John

Jo-Anne <Jo-Anne@nowhere.com> wrote:

> VanguardLH wrote:
>
>> Jo-Anne <Jo-Anne@nowhere.com> wrote:
>>
>>> For the last two days, some programs and some files are taking a very
>>> long time to open and close on my Windows 7 computer. (Firefox and
>>> Thunderbird seem to work OK.) Even worse is that sending anything to
>>> my wireless printer takes at least 12 seconds in all programs.
>>
>> Whose anti-virus/malware software do you use? More than 1 of them
>> active at the same time?
>
> I use only Avira (free version). It shows no viruses.

Did you temporarily disable Avira, reboot, check Avira was still
disabled, and retest for responsiveness?

On 10/17/2022 10:59 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
> Jo-Anne <Jo-Anne@nowhere.com> wrote:
>
>> VanguardLH wrote:
>>
>>> Jo-Anne <Jo-Anne@nowhere.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> For the last two days, some programs and some files are taking a very
>>>> long time to open and close on my Windows 7 computer. (Firefox and
>>>> Thunderbird seem to work OK.) Even worse is that sending anything to
>>>> my wireless printer takes at least 12 seconds in all programs.
>>>
>>> Whose anti-virus/malware software do you use? More than 1 of them
>>> active at the same time?
>>
>> I use only Avira (free version). It shows no viruses.
>
> Did you temporarily disable Avira, reboot, check Avira was still
> disabled, and retest for responsiveness?

Will try that tomorrow... Thank you.

--
Jo-Anne

On 10/17/2022 6:32 PM, John K.Eason wrote:
> In article <tik44i$3gb5m$1@dont-email.me>, Jo-Anne@nowhere.com (Jo-Anne) wrote:
>
>> why would Macrium Reflect need to be running when I'm not using it?
>
> Part of Macrium runs in the background at Windows startup. You can right-click on
> a Macrium backup file in Windows file selector and allocate a drive letter to it.
> It will then be shown as another "Hard Drive" in Windows with the same folder
> hierarchy as the drive that you backed up to it. You can open the backup "drive"
> and copy files straight out of it just like a normal disk drive.

Thank you for the info, John!

--
Jo-Anne

On 10/17/2022 12:11 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
> On Sun, 16 Oct 2022 11:31:07 -0500, Jo-Anne <Jo-Anne@nowhere.com>
> wrote:
>
>> For the last two days, some programs and some files are taking a very long time to open and close on
>> my Windows 7 computer. (Firefox and Thunderbird seem to work OK.) Even worse is that sending
>> anything to my wireless printer takes at least 12 seconds in all programs.
>>
>
> In addition to all the other advice, check your hard-disks. A lot of
> difficult to reproduce slow-downs can be traced back to a failing
> disk. There are a variety of free disk-checking tools which will let
> you see the SMART diagnostic information on your disks
>
> (I personally like Crystal DiskInfo but I don't know if it's the best
> and, if not, I'm sure others can recommend similar programs.
> https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskinfo/)
>
> In particular, you want to look at the Reallocated Sectors count since
> that's a prime indicator of a failing disk.
>
> It may not be a dying hard-drive, but you might as well tick it off as
> a potential problem before you begin tinkering with drivers and
> configuration settings.
>
>
Thank you, Spalls. I'll do that.

--
Jo-Anne

On 10/17/2022 10:41 AM, Jo-Anne wrote:
> On 10/16/2022 5:28 PM, David E. Ross wrote:
>> On 10/16/2022 9:31 AM, Jo-Anne wrote:
>>> For the last two days, some programs and some files are taking a very long time to open and close on
>>> my Windows 7 computer. (Firefox and Thunderbird seem to work OK.) Even worse is that sending
>>> anything to my wireless printer takes at least 12 seconds in all programs.
>>>
>>> I checked Devices and Printers and found an error symbol at the computer icon. When I double-clicked
>>> the icon, I got: “Network processing is timed out. Check the scanner and network status. Scanner
>>> driver will be terminated.”
>>>
>>> I right-clicked the icon and chose troubleshooting, which showed: “Reinstall device driver. There is
>>> a problem with the driver for Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface. Reinstalling the driver might fix
>>> this problem.”
>>>
>>> I’m nervous about having Microsoft install a driver. Should I do this? Should I do something else? I
>>> did try turning off the computer, setting the wireless switch to off, and turning on the computer.
>>> No change.
>>>
>>> Thank you.
>>>
>>> Jo-Anne
>>>
>>
>> Open Task Manager. (If you do not know how, right-click on the task bar
>> at the bottom of your desktop window and select Start Task Manager.)
>> Select the Processes tab. On the Processes pane, select the column
>> headers for CPU and then CPU Time to see what processes are consuming
>> the most time. (You might have to select a column header twice to get
>> largest-to-mallest sorting.) Is there something running that should not
>> be? Can you safely terminate it?
>>
>> While Task Manager is open, select the Services tab. (I prefer
>> Nirsoft's ServWin application from
>> <https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/serviwin.html>.) Are there unnecessary
>> services running? If so stop them.
>>
>> Do a virus scan with a current set of virus definitions. If you have
>> more than one anti-virus application, do each one, one at a time.
>> Viruses can consume excessive computer resources. Did the scan find any?
>>
>
> Thank you, David. The first thing I did was a full virus scan with the latest definitions. I use
> only Avira (free version) on this computer; the scan took a few hours and reported that there were
> no viruses. I've checked Task Manager several times during the worst of the efforts to open files or
> print. CPU usage is between 19 and 30%, and the main process seems to be svchost.exe. Nothing looks
> different from normal. Lots of processes that seem unnecessary (e.g., why would Macrium Reflect need
> to be running when I'm not using it?) but have never slowed the computer before.
>

Is your drive (or drives?) spinners or solid-state? If any are
spinners, have you defragmented it (them?) lately. My wife's PC -- a
single spinner drive -- gets slower and slower because she does not
understand fragmentation. I defragment her drive monthly when I service
her PC.

Note: Defragmentation of solid-state drives not only has no real effect
but -- worse -- can eventually cause them to fail.

--
David E. Ross
<http://www.rossde.com/>

Donald Trump demands that he be declared the winner of
the 2020 presidential election. Otherwise, he demands
that the election be rerun immediately.

What has he been smoking?

"David E. Ross" <nobody@notme.invalid> wrote:

> Note: Defragmentation of solid-state drives not only has no real effect
> but -- worse -- can eventually cause them to fail.

Actually there is a benefit to defragmenting SSDs. The MFT has a max of
how many fragments can be tracked for a file. It is a very high number
of fragments(*), so users are unlikely ever to encounter it unless they
are using their host as a file server and lots of users are editing
files there instead of just retrieving them.

Even if you use a 3rd party defragmenter, likely you never disabled the
scheduled event that runs the one in Windows. That one recognizes if a
drive is an SSD, and only defragments when needed. By default, the
scheduled event is defined in Task Scheduler -> Task Scheduler Library
-> Microsoft -> Windows -> Defrag. Every defragger uses its own
preferred layout of what the authors think is the best. That means
using more than one defragger has them battling over layout: each one
uses a different layout, moves files, and another uses a different
layout, so it moves the files again. Just use one defragger. If you
don't want to use the one built into Windows, make sure to remove or
disable both the scheduled event to run the Windows defragger, and the
boot-time run of Windows defragger.

If a file gets too fragmented, it can exceed the max count of fragments
which prevents it from getting copied or updated. The file table has a
limit on the number of structures it will track.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/topic/a-heavily-fragmented-file-in-an-ntfs-volume-may-not-grow-beyond-a-certain-size-da1c0dfd-a5a1-90b4-4bf7-b65b13ef9d35
I don't know if later versions than mentioned of Windows already have
the hotfix.

There are still problems with fragmentation that have nothing to do with
speed of access of all fragments, like slowing down an HDD. End users
rarely encounter a problem with too many fragments since their Windows
installations included boot-time and scheduled defrag jobs, but file
servers could encounter problems with high defrag counts.

For end users, defrag of SSDs incur more writes, and more writes means
less remaining write cycles. SSDs are self-destructive, and eventually
catastrophically fail, so defrags shorten the lifespan of SSDs. But
high frag counts also cause problems whether for HDDs or SSDs. Almost
invariably, the response to "Should I defrag an SSD" is written from the
perspective of a typical end user, not from the admin of a file server
having high access volume by thousands of users doing file updates.

(*) Microsoft has not published a max frag count for FAT or NTFS
probably because it depends on the structures used to define the files
in the file table. I've seen 1.5 million fragments mentioned by some
developers.

David E. Ross <nobody@notme.invalid> wrote:
[...]
> Is your drive (or drives?) spinners or solid-state? If any are
> spinners, have you defragmented it (them?) lately. My wife's PC -- a
> single spinner drive -- gets slower and slower because she does not
> understand fragmentation. I defragment her drive monthly when I service
> her PC.

Doesn't Windows 7 run the (Windows) defragmenter on a (Task
Scheduler?) schedule?

I've used Defraggler on my (previous) Windows 8.1 system, but that was
mainly for its other tasks/info, i.e. not the defragmentation part. For
defragmentation, the built-in Windows defragmenter was fine. (And as
VanguardLH mentioned, running several different defragmenters, makes one
undo the work of the other(s).)

[...]

VanguardLH <V@nguard.lh> wrote:
[...]

> Even if you use a 3rd party defragmenter, likely you never disabled the
> scheduled event that runs the one in Windows. That one recognizes if a
> drive is an SSD, and only defragments when needed.

Note that this is posted to alt.windows7.general. Are you sure the
(built-in) Windows 7 defragmenter know what a SSD is? Just asking.

[...]

On Tue, 18 Oct 2022 09:13:38 -0700, "David E. Ross"
<nobody@notme.invalid> wrote:

>Is your drive (or drives?) spinners or solid-state? If any are
>spinners, have you defragmented it (them?) lately. My wife's PC -- a
>single spinner drive -- gets slower and slower because she does not
>understand fragmentation. I defragment her drive monthly when I service
>her PC.

Personally, I haven't seen a visible improvement from defragging a
spinning drive since somewhere in the last half of the 1990s. It makes
sense that it would help, but it's not something that I can see, from a
performance perspective.

Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> wrote:

> VanguardLH <V@nguard.lh> wrote:
>
>> Even if you use a 3rd party defragmenter, likely you never disabled the
>> scheduled event that runs the one in Windows. That one recognizes if a
>> drive is an SSD, and only defragments when needed.
>
> Note that this is posted to alt.windows7.general. Are you sure the
> (built-in) Windows 7 defragmenter know what a SSD is? Just asking.

My recollection is the built-in defragger recognizes SSDs back to when
TRIM for SSDs was added to the OS. Windows XP didn't have TRIM, so
those users had to find a 3rd party tool to do it, and run it manually
or schedule it. Win7 has TRIM for SSDs.

On 10/18/2022 11:13 AM, David E. Ross wrote:
> On 10/17/2022 10:41 AM, Jo-Anne wrote:
>> On 10/16/2022 5:28 PM, David E. Ross wrote:
>>> On 10/16/2022 9:31 AM, Jo-Anne wrote:
>>>> For the last two days, some programs and some files are taking a very long time to open and close on
>>>> my Windows 7 computer. (Firefox and Thunderbird seem to work OK.) Even worse is that sending
>>>> anything to my wireless printer takes at least 12 seconds in all programs.
>>>>
>>>> I checked Devices and Printers and found an error symbol at the computer icon. When I double-clicked
>>>> the icon, I got: “Network processing is timed out. Check the scanner and network status. Scanner
>>>> driver will be terminated.”
>>>>
>>>> I right-clicked the icon and chose troubleshooting, which showed: “Reinstall device driver. There is
>>>> a problem with the driver for Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface. Reinstalling the driver might fix
>>>> this problem.”
>>>>
>>>> I’m nervous about having Microsoft install a driver. Should I do this? Should I do something else? I
>>>> did try turning off the computer, setting the wireless switch to off, and turning on the computer.
>>>> No change.
>>>>
>>>> Thank you.
>>>>
>>>> Jo-Anne
>>>>
>>>
>>> Open Task Manager. (If you do not know how, right-click on the task bar
>>> at the bottom of your desktop window and select Start Task Manager.)
>>> Select the Processes tab. On the Processes pane, select the column
>>> headers for CPU and then CPU Time to see what processes are consuming
>>> the most time. (You might have to select a column header twice to get
>>> largest-to-mallest sorting.) Is there something running that should not
>>> be? Can you safely terminate it?
>>>
>>> While Task Manager is open, select the Services tab. (I prefer
>>> Nirsoft's ServWin application from
>>> <https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/serviwin.html>.) Are there unnecessary
>>> services running? If so stop them.
>>>
>>> Do a virus scan with a current set of virus definitions. If you have
>>> more than one anti-virus application, do each one, one at a time.
>>> Viruses can consume excessive computer resources. Did the scan find any?
>>>
>>
>> Thank you, David. The first thing I did was a full virus scan with the latest definitions. I use
>> only Avira (free version) on this computer; the scan took a few hours and reported that there were
>> no viruses. I've checked Task Manager several times during the worst of the efforts to open files or
>> print. CPU usage is between 19 and 30%, and the main process seems to be svchost.exe. Nothing looks
>> different from normal. Lots of processes that seem unnecessary (e.g., why would Macrium Reflect need
>> to be running when I'm not using it?) but have never slowed the computer before.
>>
>
> Is your drive (or drives?) spinners or solid-state? If any are
> spinners, have you defragmented it (them?) lately. My wife's PC -- a
> single spinner drive -- gets slower and slower because she does not
> understand fragmentation. I defragment her drive monthly when I service
> her PC.
>
> Note: Defragmentation of solid-state drives not only has no real effect
> but -- worse -- can eventually cause them to fail.
>

I haven't defragmented, but it's odd that some programs open and close just fine and others (e.g.,
WordPerfect) take forever. Printing is particularly bad in all programs. I have a wireless printer,
and lately it takes 15-20 seconds to send the file to the printer.

Any comment on the troubleshooting message I received when I clicked on the computer in Devices and
Printers? It was “Reinstall device driver. There is a problem with the driver for Teredo Tunneling
Pseudo-Interface. Reinstalling the driver might fix this problem.”

--
Jo-Anne