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thanks for watching techwiki click the subscribe button then enable

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notifications with the bell icon so you won't miss any future videos

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5 minutes 3 hours

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20 seconds well if you've ever installed a program

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updated your os or moved files from one location to another you've probably seen

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how the estimated time remaining can jump around wildly sometimes to the

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point where you feel like Windows is just guessing like someone at the roulette

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wheel and perhaps even more perplexing is the fact that this has been an issue

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for 3 10

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30 years well you know what a really long time

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since at least Windows 95 and it hasn't seemed to have gotten better at all i

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mean we have cortana learning anything about our lives but Windows somehow

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isn't smart enough to tell us when the file transfer will be done what gives

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well as it turns out that progress bar is only given a limited amount of

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information to work with when you're trying to copy files it knows how many

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files are being moved around and how much data there is overall which at

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first glance might seem like enough to give an accurate reading given that you

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think that Windows would also know how fast your computer's hardware is

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but the reality is that your system's throughput can vary significantly over

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time for example if your file transfer has been going for a minute but suddenly

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a different process also starts hitting your disk with lots of data say Windows

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grabbing some unscheduled automatic updates or steam downloading some hot

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fresh overpriced dlc well when that happens your transfer

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speed will go down but the progress bar had no way of anticipating that so that

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estimate it gave you to start off with is now way off especially since it's

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common to see spikes at first when the data hits your drive's high speed cache

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then a sharp drop off after the data gets transferred to the main part of the

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disk now this obviously doesn't account for all situations but even if you ensure

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that you don't have much else going on in the background your speeds could

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still take a hit if whatever you're trying to move is split up into pieces

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all over your drive whether you're working with large files which have

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become heavily fragmented or just lots of smaller ones

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this causes your hard drive or SSD to have to spend more time looking around

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for all those small bits of data and again the progress bar doesn't know if

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the remaining files are scattered all over the place so it doesn't know how

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long seek times will be let's say though that you're installing a program instead

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of just copying files why aren't the estimates you get from your installer

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program much better well they too suffer from a similar

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inability to anticipate in that they often work off of a checklist of things

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they have to do to get the program completely installed and some of these

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things take far longer than others like decompressing several gigabytes of

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high-res textures if you're installing a video game versus changing a small

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handful of registry entries but many installers treat these tasks merely as

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two things on a longer list that will add a certain percentage complete to the

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bar when they're done instead of actively thinking about how long each

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task will take well hold on a minute john that last one just sounded like

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excuse making so why can't we just make progress tracker smarter well we could

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but to do so would require more complex coding and algorithms to keep track of

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all these different variables that affect throughput and that still doesn't

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solve the problem of not always being able to anticipate changes in speed

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caused by other things your system is doing and although there are third-party

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file transfer programs out there that are better at giving realistic estimates

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spending tons of time trying to optimize an installation progress bar just isn't

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a priority for many developers compared to polishing up the user interface

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security or stability of their software you know the stuff that can profoundly

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affect your user experience so next time your computer gets stuck at

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75 or whatever remember that unless it's actually frozen the devs have probably

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just stuck to the old dodge of a watch pot never boils and use the time to go

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do something more productive than stare at your screen like watching techwiki

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