Problems in My Pictures (in XP)

Just recently My Pictures (in XP) has taken to endlessly copying photos when I am selecting numerous images to rename (hold down Ctrl and click on images). Any ideas how to stop this? I end up having to delete dozens of repeat images and even while I'm selecting these, the system copies them again. The only way to get rid is to drag them into a folder then delete the folder but it is very time consuming.

I downloaded software so that a family member could transfer pictures onto my PC from a Samsung phone. Could this be causing a conflict?

 

I've done the same thing Feathers.

not sure what actually happens, but if you dont have the cursor still on the pic when you click to select it, it copies it.
And you eventually get a message saying, "do you want to stop copying"

try to make a slow definite selection of each pic and see what happens then.

 

It is possible that your machine is responding slowly due to lack of memory and therefore playing up. In XP, when you go into your pictures folder it renders a thumbnail image of each one, which takes up lots of resources if you have a lot of images in the folder.

I'd be inclined to make a load of subfolders within the My Pictures folder, name the subfolders with some sort of category or useful naming convention (eg GardenPics, Holiday2008 etc) and drag the pictures into their appropriate subfolder. That way you'll have less images in any single folder, and so your machine will need less resources to render the thumbnails, will respond faster and hopefully behave itself. Also it makes it easier to find the pics your looking for.

 

I do have all my pix in subfolders. The ones which have caused me problems have between 80 and 450 images in each which doesn't seem so many (well, not the 80). I think I will try going slower...

Thanks for the help, everyone.

 

I would suggest that you be a little more choosy in what you take, be very selective and take time and trouble to get it right. I've known many photographers who (when they were using film) never printed the majority of pictures and eventually destroyed the negatives. Don't keep any which are below your high standard.

Another way would be to get an external HDD and store them on that. I store the majority of data on an ext. HDD (it's got the advantage that it can be plugged into any other computer). If you keep your data on an ext. HDD it will stop your system HDD getting clogged up and slowing the computer down. You must keep at least 10% of the HDD free. Windows uses this space as virtual memory. My system does not do this, but makes a swap partition when it formats the HDD and will not allow this space to be used by anything else.

 

Oh, Larkshall, please don't stop my fun. I have always taken lots of photos and did albums when I used film. My disaster rate is very low. I do back up to disc but I like running slideshows on the pc. By going slower, I meant picking up on Pete's tip.

I don't think 450 pix from two weeks in Thailand is OTT.

 

I have just learnt how to upload pix - here are a few from the last holiday.

 

Hi Feathers
I found i had that problem last week when i went to delete something else i found 100s of the same 5 pics, so i will try the same remedies as you
By the way i dont think 450 pics from 2 weeks OTT if they are all as beautiful as the ones you posted :wink: