>>I'm using TotalCommander for file manipulation, and among wise things in it, there's an option to show no icons at all. Whenever I do that, the speed just soars. Obviously, nowadays even such an advanced successor of Norton Commander can't access the disk directly and read folders at will, it has to go through filesystem API - and thus suffers the same pitfalls... except Ghisler found that parameter where it says "no icons please (we aren't orthodox)".
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>>Tried this with several versions of windows (XP, W7, S2003 and S2008) and the effect is the same. Much much faster without icons.
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>Yupp, but that API leaves you at the mercy of MS wisdom of what directories can be accessed or manipulated - not Ghislers fault that MS uses such stupid redirections and "security" measures.

Well it does get further than WE (and the renamed File explorer, though nobody can point to a single folder or file that was explored by either of them), and gets into places where these won't.

Just yesterday I visited someone's virtual machine and was looking for a .rdp file. There was one in the current folder, I could see it, and I wondered whether there were more of these in subfolders. So I searched... and found none. Not even the one I just saw. I just don't feel comfortable installing TC on machines where I visit only from time to time, but on the ones I visit regularly, I always do. Whatever I lose on billable hours, I save on nerves.