So I finished watching Lucky Star (anime review to come later) today and one of the last few episodes featured Konata transferring files in Windows XP:
It’s a common problem we see everyday on windows. When we transfer a bulk load of files, the estimated transfer time jumps around like crazy. As Konata notes, “It happens every time… The way it goes up and down makes it useless.” As RayAlome comments, “They might as well just make it a random number generator.”
Apparently it gets worse in Windows Vista, but according to Derek, they’ve fixed the problem already. The patch is currently available: KB938979: An update is available that improves the performance and reliability of Windows Vista and one of issues it resolves is: When you copy or move a large file, the “estimated time remaining” takes a long time to be calculated and displayed. It’s currently not being pushed down as a critical update, but will be pushed down when SP1 becomes available. If you want it earlier, go download it now.
It turns out the patch actually did more than fix the transfer time estimation. It made transfers go faster! Take a look at this benchmark: KB938979 to Fix File Transfer Woes. No, really. Speed tests show that after the patch was applied, transfer time decreased almost 120%!
Another computer annoyance that happened to me today was iTunes froze when it was playing a song and it began to stutter. Usually this is a sign that my system has hung, but I was relieved to find out that my mouse was still able to move and I was able to launch task manager to kill iTunes. Stupid iTunes…