thanks for watching tech quickie click
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hours 20 seconds well if you've ever
installed a program update 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 it's 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 lies but Windows
somehow isn't smart enough to tell us
when a 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 and knows how many
files are being moved around and how
much data there is overall which a 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 loss 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
through drives 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
the background your speeds could still
take a hit if whenever 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
far doesn't know if there are many files
were 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 and
ability 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
videogame versus changing a small hansel
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 track
or 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 percent
or whatever remember that unless is
actually frozen the devs have probably
just stuck to the old adage of a watched
pot never boils and use the time to go
do something more productive than stare
at your screen like watching tech cookie
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