How to speed up windows explorer?

1.Disable legacy filename creation 

  Legacy filename creation is the feature of windows to support capability for older windos application .But now the file system of windows has been changed dramatically Microsoft has always believed that backwards compatibility contributes to the success of Windows because it enables users to easily upgrade to a new version and their older applications will still work. However, that mentality often results in performance reductions caused by code that had to be tweaked to allow for new functionality while preserving existing functionality.

To disable legacy filename creation follow these steps:-

1. Click the Start button, type Command Prompt in the Search box, and then press Enter.
2. Command Prompt appears at the top of the list in your Start menu. Right-click the shortcut and select Run as Administrator, 
   After Command Prompt has loaded in the Administrator context, you will be able to access the NTFS configuration utility. At the prompt, type fsutil behavior set disable8dot3 1
   
   
   1. Close Command Prompt and restart your computer for the change to be activated.
   Enabling the legacy filename feature is also very easy. Just repeat the preceding instructions and run fsutil behavior set disable8dot3 0 instead and restart.
   
   

   Disabling the file access timestamp

   Every time you or an application accesses a file on your computer, the file system records the date and time the file was accessed and stores the timestamp in two locations. Simply accessing a file requires the system to write to the master file table (MFT) and the directory the file is located in, which results in two writes for every file read. Windows Explorer is one of the most read intensive applications on your computer. Nothing requires more reads to your file system than browsing through your files. In Windows Vista, Explorer has a number of new file previews that require even more file reads. All these file reads add up to extra timestamp writes, resulting in slower performance.
   
   
   The process for disabling the file access timestamp is very similar to disabling MS-DOS filename support. Just follow these steps:
3. Click the Start button, type Command Prompt in the Search box, and then press Enter.
4. Command Prompt appears at the top of the list in your Start menu. Right-click the shortcut and select Run as Administrator.
5. After Command Prompt has loaded in the Administrator context, you will be able to access the NTFS configuration utility. At the prompt, type fsutil behavior set disablelastaccess 1.
6. Close Command Prompt and restart your computer for the change to take effect.

If you run into any problems with this change in your backup application or any other applications, you can easily undo the tweak. Just type fsutil behavior set disablelastaccess 0 at the command prompt instead.

Adjusting NTFS memory allocation

The NTFS file system likes to cache files that are open in physical memory for the fastest possible access to the raw data. This is accomplished by first reading the data from the hard drive and transferring it to physical memory. Depending on the amount of RAM in your computer, portions of the open files may be paged to disk in the paging file because the entire file cannot fit in the available physical memory. This results in slower overall performance because in order for an application to read the entire file, existing data in the physical memory cache has to be paged back to the hard disk to make room and then other unread portions have to be pulled back from the hard drive into physical memory. This carefully orchestrated memory swap requires a lot of CPU, memory, and hard drive processing time. Whenever memory paging occurs, it slows down the overall performance of your computer.

1. Follow these steps to determine if you can increase the memory allocation:
2. Click the Start button, type perfmon in the Search box, and then press Enter.
3. When the Reliability and Performance Monitor loads, click Performance Monitor under Monitoring Tools.
4. Press Ctrl+I to add performance counters.
5. Navigate to the Memory section and expand it.
6. Locate and select Cache Bytes Peak and press Add.
7. Locate and select System Cache Resident Bytes and press Add.
8. Press OK when both counters are added.
9. Switch to the Report View by pressing Ctrl+G until you see the performance counters listed
   1. Note the values of all three counters on a sheet of paper so that you can reference them even after a reboot.
   Now you need to analyze the counters you just gathered. Cache Bytes Peak shows the maximum amount of physical system pool non-page memory in use since your computer was last rebooted. This number is very important because the memory manager in Windows Vista limits you to 256MB (268,435,456 bytes) of physical system pool non-page memory regardless of the amount of RAM in your computer. If your Cache Bytes Peak value is within 20MB of the 256MB limitation, this is a big red flag to not attempt this hack. In that scenario, you might slow down your computer even more by implementing this hack.
   Next, let's take a look at your total System Cache Resident Bytes. This is the current size of the file system cache in physical system pool non-page memory. When you implement this hack, this value can increase by up to 50 percent. Take 50 percent of the System Cache Resident Bytes value and add it to the Cache Bytes Peak value. Make sure that it is below the 256MB limit.
   If your results of the two tests above are on the borderline for passing, I would still implement this hack. It is easy to undo this setting and it will not harm any of your hardware or have a permanent effect on the performance of your computer.
   Follow these steps to increase the memory available to the file system:
10. Click the Start button, type Command Prompt in the Search box, and then press Enter.
11. Command Prompt appears at the top of the list in your Start menu. Right-click the shortcut and select Run as Administrator.
12. After Command Prompt has loaded in the Administrator context, you will be able to access the NTFS configuration utility. At the prompt, type fsutil behavior set memoryusage 2.
13. Close Command Prompt and restart your computer for the change to be active.

After your computer has restarted and you load up your usual applications, check to make sure that your Cache Bytes Peak value in Perfmon is still well under 256MB. Also find the difference between your new System Cache Resident Bytes value and the value before the change. Add that to the old Cache Bytes Peak value you wrote down earlier to ensure that the sum is also less than 256MB. If it is greater, you might be stealing memory from other system components, resulting in an overall slowdown in performance.

If you notice any decrease in performance or have bad results from the preceding test, undoing the change is very simple. Just type fsutil behavior set memoryusage 1 at the prompt instead and reboot.