Improve start-up/responsiveness of PA

[H4ndy]

Hi there,

I’m using PA since the “freeware days” and I’m still satisfied with it in terms of functionality (using 2012 Pro at the moment).

But I noticed that it’s startup is sooo slow compared e.g. to WinRAR. I have a Quad-Core CPU and a SSD as system drive and PA still needs serveral seconds to open up and start it’s work (no matter if I open the application or want to extract something). I just doesn’t feel responsive. Hard to put into words, sorry.

[Mili]

Is it faster for you if you use it in Classic interface?

[Socrates]

I tried PA with and without classic interface. About 2 1/2 seconds on a 5 year old machine.

WinRar load in 1 1/2 seconds.

I will glad survive the extra second to get PA’s array of tools.

Maybe, though, my system is unusual.

[spwolf]

@H4ndy:

Hi there,

I’m using PA since the “freeware days” and I’m still satisfied with it in terms of functionality (using 2012 Pro at the moment).

But I noticed that it’s startup is sooo slow compared e.g. to WinRAR. I have a Quad-Core CPU and a SSD as system drive and PA still needs serveral seconds to open up and start it’s work (no matter if I open the application or want to extract something). I just doesn’t feel responsive. Hard to put into words, sorry.

what about shell extensions?

[drteeth]

@H4ndy:

But I noticed that it’s startup is sooo slow compared e.g. to WinRAR. I have a Quad-Core CPU and a SSD as system drive and PA still needs serveral seconds to open up and start it’s work

Agreed! 4-5 seconds to load on Intel i7 860, Win 7 x64 and 8GB. In use it is fine, but the long initial loading time is a puzzle - 3x longer than Word 2010 :eek:.

DrT

[spwolf]

Do you have rxplorer view or something? Hows the 2nd load and shell? How long until window shows up?

It loads 2 seconds on my laptop with no ss

[drteeth]

@spwolf:

Do you have rxplorer view or something? Hows the 2nd load and shell? How long until window shows up?

It loads 2 seconds on my laptop with no ss

Approx 2 secs on subsequent loading, times to when main window appears. Only this loading is slow, in use and with shell extns it is fine.

DrT

[spwolf]

@drteeth:

Approx 2 secs on subsequent loading, times to when main window appears. Only this loading is slow, in use and with shell extns it is fine.

DrT

so it is only initial load a bit slow? we always work on that, it is one of the things constantly on our mind… you might not see it because we keep adding features and each one slows down a bit, so we speed up bringing it back still not great :-).

For every major release lots of work is done in this area… and we keep evaluating options.

At least operations themselves are super duper fast… new 13.01 will bring another 15% to unrar speed as well.

[drteeth]

@spwolf:

so it is only initial load a bit slow?

Yes. Slow enough to think I may have mis-clicked the icon (I have it pinned on my task bar).

Regards

DrT

[RJWaring]

What would be interesting idea to have is a PA Safe Mode.

Which starts PA up without the Ribbon in very classic format and strips down on Visuals system components.

Safe mode would continue to allow users to do the core basics of PA such as Compress, open and extract archives. But other things like FTP, Backup virtual driver take a back end role unless they are specifically selected.

This would mean users can instantly use archives with minimal restrictions. if they want more “advanced” features then they would start PA in Normal mode.

[spwolf]

@Sir:

What would be interesting idea to have is a PA Safe Mode.

Which starts PA up without the Ribbon in very classic format and strips down on Visuals system components.

Safe mode would continue to allow users to do the core basics of PA such as Compress, open and extract archives. But other things like FTP, Backup virtual driver take a back end role unless they are specifically selected.

This would mean users can instantly use archives with minimal restrictions. if they want more “advanced” features then they would start PA in Normal mode.

components are not loaded unless needed so it is always in “safe mode”… only option would be PA compiled/built/distributed without all those features.

[RJWaring]

I dont know how PA is written… but surely that would be pritty dam hard to do wouldnt it?

But it’s possibly a good idea too… I mean with certain installers like Office, or Adobe etc the user can install the “Basic”, “Custom” or “Full” on basic it has the shell and when a user selects say “FTP” it then prompts them to install that particular feature. If they never intend to use FTP then they leave it.

Maybe… just maybe PA could adapt their installer and program to work in the same fasion.

[spwolf]

@Sir:

I dont know how PA is written… but surely that would be pritty dam hard to do wouldnt it?

But it’s possibly a good idea too… I mean with certain installers like Office, or Adobe etc the user can install the “Basic”, “Custom” or “Full” on basic it has the shell and when a user selects say “FTP” it then prompts them to install that particular feature. If they never intend to use FTP then they leave it.

Maybe… just maybe PA could adapt their installer and program to work in the same fasion.

speed has nothing to do with Burner, FTP or Backup, since they are all on the outside of PowerArchiver.
You can delete all of PowerArchiver dll’s from Program Files\PowerArchiver (except for one that checks license) and PA will start the same as always - so there are no external dependencies.

It is the interface thats loaded at startup as well as our compression engine. Nothing else as we moved everything outside in the past few years.

[Luxor]

I wonder if slow starts can be caused by what antivirus people are using.

Never seen any problem myself but I did see a post on Avast forums a little while ago, where someone mentioned the new version of Avast was causing a slower start-up of PA and after they had added PA to their exclusion list the problem disappeared.

[guido]

I notice a lag in switching of the ribbons. I see the panes move from right to left and back…

[drteeth]

@Luxor:

I wonder if slow starts can be caused by what antivirus people are using.

By that logic, all apps would be similarly affected, they are not.

DrT

[Luxor]

@drteeth:

By that logic, all apps would be similarly affected, they are not.

DrT

I wouldn’t be too sure of that.
As an example I use XMPlay for playing my audio files. I had a problem with it starting up very slowly and added it to my exclusion list and after that it started instantly.

Nothing else on my computer starts slowly. ;)

[drteeth]

In that case I would say it is the fault of the errant app. One can only blame the AV if all apps are affected. So if PA is the only app adversely affected by a user’s AV, it is for PA to fix and one must ask why only that app is affected.

DrT

[Luxor]

Odd thing is that there was no issue with starting XMPlay until Avast 6 came along, so I would guess that something changed in the way Avast handles things somehow.

But this has gone OT so I’ll stop discussing it here. :)

[spwolf]

PA was always slower to start and fast in operation (fastest!), just question of how slow is it for someone and how much they use main PA vs shell, as shell is instant…

[spwolf]

what about having simpler application, complementary to PA that doesnt have all the full features (Classic interface, no Pro/Tbx features) but will be super fast to load and of course multicore compression just like PA itself?

Or do you guys want to have your cake and eat it? :-)

[Luxor]

@spwolf:

Or do you guys want to have your cake and eat it? :-)

^^This^^ :D

[spwolf]

:-)

[drteeth]

@spwolf:

PA was always slower to start and fast in operation (fastest!), just question of how slow is it for someone and how much they use main PA vs shell, as shell is instant…

As a non-programmer, I am just surprised that the issue exists on an Intel i7-860, Win 7 x64, 8GB memory, fast H/Ds and a Nvidia 560Ti card. Could the interface, if that is where the slowdown is, use some graphics hardware acceleration features?

Cheers

DrT

[spwolf]

@drteeth:

As a non-programmer, I am just surprised that the issue exists on an Intel i7-860, Win 7 x64, 8GB memory, fast H/Ds and a Nvidia 560Ti card. Could the interface, if that is where the slowdown is, use some graphics hardware acceleration features?

Cheers

DrT

its not that simple, things are loaded sequentially… p.s. on my new SSD, it is between 1 and 2 seconds max.

[drteeth]

@spwolf:

its not that simple, things are loaded sequentially… p.s. on my new SSD, it is between 1 and 2 seconds max.

That long LOL!

Cheers

DrT

[spwolf]

:-)