Windows have been missing media since 1995.
Windows have been missing media since 1995.
I have always wondered about this thing: Back in the old windows (I mean win95/98 era) if you clicked A: drive (that is the 3,5" disk drive), while it was empty (no disk inside), the windows would completely freeze while windows TRIED to access the non-existing disk. A bit later Microsoft ditched the A: drive as no one really used disks anymore, but the exact same thing happened with the CD-ROM drive. Windows did really hang while the system checked if there is something in that drive - sometimes for a few seconds, up to half a minute. Windows 8 got frozen if you are trying to access mapped network drive such as Z: (traditionally named at the end of the alphabet) if the network connection is slow or disconnected. My Windows 10 freezes if there's no internet (wifi-router out of range or all the bandwidth taken by downstairs netflix). Obviously you can tell by my history I am of gen X, has anyone else noticed this along your way through windows history? IS IT THE SAME PROBLEM through all this time? Does windows have a "no media found => ALL SYSTEMS CRITICAL => divert all the CPU cycles in the search of the requested media" -mechanism that will take our precious time at least once a week?
Moved to Windows subforum. My NAS is off right now, which causes this issue whenever I launch My Computer and it attempts to locate the missing network volume. It usually appears only once after a restart, but after that it shows up as unavailable immediately without any delay.
It must connect to the storage device to determine if any files are present, and the method used is part of the interaction you're having. Unfortunately, some faulty drives require a delay for the system to recognize their state before concluding nothing is there.
However, it has frequently happened that the entire operating system becomes unresponsive for 5 to 30 seconds. This issue extends beyond simple multitasking, which is quite disappointing. Despite Moore's law having been in effect for 25 years since 1998, we're still facing this problem today.
It's accurate, I appreciate the ability to terminate the explorer.exe process and see that many applications still function smoothly afterward.
There seems to be an issue with your system where the name of your NAS is being mapped to Z, causing Explorer and certain apps to freeze. This might have started around Windows 98 due to limited RAM and a single core. It appears Explorer.exe could be poorly built, leading to hangs now. Also, you experience freezing on slow or full USB drives during loading.