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5 minutes 3 hours
20 seconds well if you've ever installed a program
updated your os or moved files from one location to another you've probably seen
how the estimated time remaining can jump around wildly sometimes to the
point where you feel like Windows is just guessing like someone at the roulette
wheel and perhaps even more perplexing is the fact that this has been an issue
for 3 10
30 years well you know what a really long time
since at least Windows 95 and it hasn't seemed to have gotten better at all i
mean we have cortana learning anything about our lives but Windows somehow
isn't smart enough to tell us when the file transfer will be done what gives
well as it turns out that progress bar is only given a limited amount of
information to work with when you're trying to copy files it knows how many
files are being moved around and how much data there is overall which at
first glance might seem like enough to give an accurate reading given that you
think that Windows would also know how fast your computer's hardware is
but the reality is that your system's throughput can vary significantly over
time for example if your file transfer has been going for a minute but suddenly
a different process also starts hitting your disk with lots of data say Windows
grabbing some unscheduled automatic updates or steam downloading some hot
fresh overpriced dlc well when that happens your transfer
speed will go down but the progress bar had no way of anticipating that so that
estimate it gave you to start off with is now way off especially since it's
common to see spikes at first when the data hits your drive's high speed cache
then a sharp drop off after the data gets transferred to the main part of the
disk now this obviously doesn't account for all situations but even if you ensure
that you don't have much else going on in the background your speeds could
still take a hit if whatever you're trying to move is split up into pieces
all over your drive whether you're working with large files which have
become heavily fragmented or just lots of smaller ones
this causes your hard drive or SSD to have to spend more time looking around
for all those small bits of data and again the progress bar doesn't know if
the remaining files are scattered all over the place so it doesn't know how
long seek times will be let's say though that you're installing a program instead
of just copying files why aren't the estimates you get from your installer
program much better well they too suffer from a similar
inability to anticipate in that they often work off of a checklist of things
they have to do to get the program completely installed and some of these
things take far longer than others like decompressing several gigabytes of
high-res textures if you're installing a video game versus changing a small
handful of registry entries but many installers treat these tasks merely as
two things on a longer list that will add a certain percentage complete to the
bar when they're done instead of actively thinking about how long each
task will take well hold on a minute john that last one just sounded like
excuse making so why can't we just make progress tracker smarter well we could
but to do so would require more complex coding and algorithms to keep track of
all these different variables that affect throughput and that still doesn't
solve the problem of not always being able to anticipate changes in speed
caused by other things your system is doing and although there are third-party
file transfer programs out there that are better at giving realistic estimates
spending tons of time trying to optimize an installation progress bar just isn't
a priority for many developers compared to polishing up the user interface
security or stability of their software you know the stuff that can profoundly
affect your user experience so next time your computer gets stuck at
75 or whatever remember that unless it's actually frozen the devs have probably
just stuck to the old dodge of a watch pot never boils and use the time to go
do something more productive than stare at your screen like watching techwiki
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