MS wants you to have a pagefile, irrespective of the system ram size ....and they want it on the same drive as the OS.  They then 'require' developers to adopt their heirarchy of public/user/file locations .... and 'all' will be well with their OS.

Being 'clever' they provide 'fiddlers' with the opportunity to remove and/or relocate stuff just for 'fun'..... but I am sure if you fiddle enough to 'break' things they will simply demand you revert to default before you'll ever get support from them.

99.9 times out of 100 ....when something goes wrong [with any proggy] it is because someone - somewhere has been 'fiddling'.

GUI customizers [skinners] have often been on the coal-face of 'fiddling'.... I know I have managed to 'break' any and EVERY MS OS install I have ever had.... but I am the first to identify the culprit.

sambastrakan .... if you [now] have your User files where MS says they are supposed to be .... AND a pagefile there too ....AND you now see little or no lag then you know what caused it.  [it ain't Rocket Surgery]...;)

You don't get it Jafo, I think there are so much posts with lot of details that the problem became confused (there is also my "english"problem...):

On my desktop pc:

1 - puting pagefile on c: or on a hdd does not create problem with WB, win file explorer, or whatever else app. I run this way for years. As I read some stuff about this yesterday, I put it back to ssd because it seems to be harmless for ssd (but 1-2 years ago there was a lot of papers talking about this like a problem).

2 - I also run win7 for years installing it with Users on an other hdd using OOBE clean install. And no problem so far with any app. The only reason everything is fine NOW is because I just moved Users/public/Documents (where stardock/windowblinds files are) to C: and ONLY this folder ! All the others folder of Users (public and my account) reamains on my hdd. I don't want to have a lot of caches and tmp folders on my ssd.

So, again, WB may not be the main guilty. But ... it has something to do with the problem ....

Yes...because those files are the ones needed to 'add' to the Explorer shell.

When the OS boots the shell is loaded [the shell is the GUI you see.....the desktop...startbutton...taskbar...etc].

If you change the images used from the default windows ones they need to be found and added as part of the GUI so if they took 5 extra minutes to be found and added then the shell would appear to take 5 extra minutes to finish loading.

Having 'system' files all together where they [MS] wants them is the only sensible option.

No-one will ever care what you do with your User photos of your cat/whatever...as they are not used in the shell loading process.  You can have them anywhere you dream of...;)

Users folder is on a 10kRPM hdd. Problem does not more occurs because public/documents points now to a ssd folder. But when it ocurred, skin images were on the 10kRPM hdd, and you will not make me believe it take 20-30 seconds to load them in shell. Something is not well managed by WB in an "undetermined" (for now) situation.

Now, if Stardock don't want to investigate that, ok. I just spent time trying to report a problem and trying to indentify the context. [reading your posts, i don't know if it's really the case but i notice some kind of sarcasm]

No...certainly not sarcasm...just an explanation of Microsoft's 'policy'.  It's not so much about how fast a drive is...whether 10k rpm or SSD ...but actually more about address.  When the SSD is 'C' - the OS drive .... and Public/Users/etc is on 'D' or 'E' it's Windows which sits and thinks..."now...where are those User files?".

If your OS drive was a 5.4k rpm platter....as long as ALL the OS files needed for the boot/load sequence were on that same drive you'd see no appreciable delay [other than the entire drive speed being less]....;)

In most cases, there's never been problems with moving profiles off the same disk.  In fact, it's included in the Win2012 server performance guide.  It's generally been pretty standard for years as long as you do it properly which is generally through the install process.  To find your users profiles, all Windows does is check HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\ and pull the user profile location.

If I blamed anything, I would probably be concerned about these:  TuneUp Utilities, and Glary Utilities.

TuneUp Live Optimization:

Detection: Live Optimization detects programs that you’re not actively using but that are taking up most of your CPUs power.

Optimization: If a process is taking up too much CPU resources, Live Optimization 2.0 automatically balances resources more effectively. Programs that you’re actively using are now much faster again.

Some programs take up CPU resources for a damned good reason.  How can this thing possibly know which?

TuneUp Turbo Mode:

Cause: Windows® keeps on running dozens of features, services, processes and scheduled tasks running in the background that you really don’t need. Unfortunately, they’re still in the habit of consuming way too much CPU power and RAM resources, which has a negative impact on performance.

Solution: Our Turbo Mode of TuneUp Utilities 2014 turns off more than 70 invisible features in Windows® 8, Windows® 7, and Windows® XP to boost PC performance. It’s simply the best tool out there for serious users who need above-average performance when designing, video editing, gaming, or programming.

70 Features?  That's more than all the services Windows runs combined, naturally no list can be found to say what it's actually doing.

TuneUp 1 Click and Automatic Maintainence:

Clean registry: Solves registry problems and deletes dead keys or values such as startup entries that a 3rd party application forgot to delete, which could lead to problems during startup. It also gets rid of invalid file type pointers and orphaned entries within the list of installed applications which could lead to problems when installing or uninstalling applications. With our 2014 version, the registry is being cleaned up even faster than before.

Optimize startup and shutdown: TuneUp Utilities 2014 stops the startup of applications that are not needed immediately upon system startup:

In general, don't screw with the registry and if you do, use CCleaner and only if you know what you're doing.  This thing will delete settings from programs and cause all sorts of ill effects.  The best practice is to run the analyzer and then selectively delete what you know is safe.

TuneUp Program Deactivator:

Solution: TuneUp Utilities 2014 sports the best solution for this program, without you having to uninstall programs or sacrifice anything! TuneUp Program Deactivator turns off programs by pausing their background activity when they’re not actively running.

TuneUp Program Deactivator™ works as follows:

Disables programs including all resource-hungry components
Re-enables programs on demand so users can continue using them
Turns programs off, once users don’t need them anymore
TuneUp Program Deactivator is fully integrated into Live Optimization 2.0 – it allows you to turn off resource hogs easier than before

This one to be honest just screms "screw me up."  Just because a program is idle at some time doesn't mean it isn't doing something since it could be awaiting events.  Automatically disabling programs using resource without knowing what they are....don't even need to address that one.

Beautify Windows® with TuneUp Styler

Tired of the same old Windows® look? Then how about giving Windows® 7, Windows Vista® and Windows® XP a more translucent, “glowing” interface, or a cool, futuristic look with TuneUp Utilities 2014*? TuneUp Styler replaces all the visual elements on your PC easily, safely, and exactly the way you want them.

Visual Styles
TuneUp Styler allows you to quickly switch visual styles, a large number of which can be found on our TuneUp Styler website. You can also head over to www.deviantart.com and check out the “Customization\Skins & Themes\Windows 7 Utilities or Windows® Utilities” library with dozens of styles to choose from.

Yeah this one is great.  WindowBlinds is a great app so surely 2 visual stylers should be twice as great!

You should toss this one considering there's tons of papers on why they cause far more harm then good including crashing programs, killing your registry, or just outright do nothing.  Screwing around with the settings that WindowBlinds already adjusts is probably the worst thing I can think of out of all of them.  Any one of those could be messing with things and running Glary Utilities 3 which does the same thing effectively probably is just throwing dynamite onto an open flame.  Keep CCleaner and *maybe* Glary around as CCleaner is the best of them and actually has a beneficial use; I don't see people crying about Glary breaking their computer but messing with the start-up could and you don't have that many start-up apps that need to be adjusted in order so is likely just causing problems.

General rule of thumb:

Don't let programs automatically decide to turn them on or off or change their priorities since they haven't a clue about their use.

Speed-Up programs more often than not just break things and these Start-Up "optimizes" are again just making decisions about apps they don't know anything about so its no surprise its not consistent if they're constantly messing with the start-up order or delaying things.

Stacking on shell extensions you should generally avoid as they make Explorer more unstable.  Stacking extensions that are all screwing around with visual settings and Aero sounds like a disaster to be honest.  Your Explorer hanging is probably the result of WB and this one fighting over dominance.

If you're running 2 of these at once, you're doubling the system costs and causing god knows what else.  I hope you have one disabled from active use at least.

It seems TuneUp has drivers embedded into the OS so you'll likely have to uninstall it just to test being without it.  Autoruns is able to disable parts but is best if you know what to look for since messing with the drivers section otherwise can stop system booting.  I suggest keeping at least autoruns around but the entire SysInternals suite is extremely helpful as a whole.  These are all Microsoft sanctioned programs from the actual engineers that know the internals of the operating system (hence "sysinternals").  There's also the possibility that the "tweaks" these programs do to the registry may need to be reversed manually to help,  If it comes to that, I'll show you how.

Ok, my bad for that. It's a common problem with quick messages that we can interpret wrong, especialy when we are in a period of stress ...

If MS windows really "sits and thinks..."now...where are those User files?", and is not able to manage 2 mass storage with differents flow ... then this OS is really not a pro OS ...it makes me want to cry

In the case of my laptop, you possibly find something to investigate. I use these kind of softwares carefully, with every automatic functions off and services off too (start manual). I just use some functionalities, I reasonebly know what I'm doing, but even like that, it's possible that TuneUp or Glary screwed something. Indeed, these days I was caming to the conclusion that these soft are not reliable.

Now, back to my desktop pc: it was a fresh install and problem occured before installing and runing any tweak software. And problem was solved you know how. So, the mystery remains and I'm not convinced by Jafo's argumentation.

Anyway, thanks a lot for your posts. Some usefull links helped me to have a clean events journal on my desktop pc wich is runing (very) fine.

sambastrakan ... your problem was solved by what you did.  You relocated the WB files to a location that Microsoft recommends User files be placed.  My explanation of why that solved the slowness is simply that the explorer process loading requires the ready access to ALL files being loaded within that process.  It's simply a practical reality that the painting of Explorer can only occur after the process is initialised....and any delay by reason of non-default file location will show as 'slow loading' of the Explorer process.

An example....

Many games require the original CD/DVD be in the Rom Drive [to verify licence] and when loading the game, even when it's fully installed on the computer will simply stall and give you the message 'please insert CD in drive'.  The loading process of the game stops totally until it 'finds' that CD. 

In either case...once WB is loaded into cache [or the game/OS finds the CD key] the system continues flawlessly.

I'm not sure I can make it any clearer.  Perhaps someone can translate into your native language for clarity...;)

Jafo, sorry, we won't reach an agreement.

And I think you loose something: when the logon "goes bad" the uis2 frame is used instead of "per pixel" one (on any app, not only explorer). Obviously I don't know how WB works and perhaps there is an explanation for that ?

Still when logon goes bad, If I start another soft than explorer at first, like notepad++, it starts fast and appears also with uis2 frame. Or explorer needs a lot more files to work and wait 20-30sec for them to load ??

I don't think it's the load of the files which is causing explorer to hang

If the 'hang' is ONLY on boot then it can also be something else loading/running which is interupting the loading of Explorer....and once the OS has booted it no longer occurs.

You have already stated that you no longer see a 'hang' now that you have moved the WB files and pagefile to the default location.

If you can't agree that it must have been their location causing the delay then it must be another program upset by their placement.  Either way, it is still the relocation that has fixed the delay. [unless you have done something else at the same time...like removing other programs/stopped them from loading, etc]...;)

Isn't debating this for so long a little ridiculous?  I mean we could've solved the answer of if the files are taking too long or not like.....hours ago in maybe 15 minutes?

Hell, if that's too much time then what's it say for the time we spent on this

It's not a debate.  The issue is apparently resolved, only a language/understanding issue possibly remains...;)

For you, you've been here one month.  Imagine what it's like when you've been here a dozen years...;)

On the forums on the team?  Forums noooooo....I can't go now but I'll probably take Google up on their offer in like 6 months or so.  Facebook's hurting pretty bad for people too from s recruiter said.  I want to do the Maps & Earth team.  Sounded like fun to me.  I can't believe they just let you pick what team you want and where you want to live.  Usually its the other way around.

"only a language/understanding issue possibly remains"

for sure !

1- The issue disappeared before I put back pagefile to c: This have nothing to do with problem, it's a fact.

2- Users is still on a hdd ! Only Users\public\Documents points to a folder on c: ! Only this action solve the problem, it's the 2nd fact.

3- The only app accessing this folder is WB, there is nothing more than stardock folder in it. 3rd and last fact.

Damn, at each post you give an explanation based on wrong facts/informations/interpretations.

I give up.

No.

I added that the pagefile being CORRECTLY on the 'C' drive was an added plus.... but the IMPORTANT thing mentioned yet again is that the files NEEDED by Explorer.exe are where they are required BY MICROSOFT to be....and you said you DID move the Windowblinds files back to C.

I understood that the first time you stated it.

I say once more....

Windowblinds skins the Explorer.exe process. Microsoft WANTS NEEDED files to be in their right place not on some other drive.

It is ONLY Microsoft's FAULT that they give people the opportunity to put them in less optimum places causing the loading of the process to slow while the Kernel looks for the files.

You CORRECTLY resolved your issue so this thread is now redundant.