Subject: Re: PSA: Finally Irfanview has an option to NOT change the wallpaper by accident!

Paul wrote:
On Sun, 3/8/2026 2:22 PM, MummyChunk wrote:

...w? wrote:
On 3/8/2026 5:54 AM, MummyChunk wrote:

Maria Sophia wrote:
[snip]





By the way, when speaking about this program - has anyone experienced
the problem when opening HEIC photos from a network drive - it sometimes
has a long delay when displaying the image before you can close it.
Seems to only happen with these images being opened from a network drive
on Windows 11


Only a few seconds delay, at most at this end.
Tested HEIC photos in variety of stored locations.
Online(OneDrive), Local OneDrive storage configured for sync/storage
stored on separate drive(internal SSD and SDXC card), and on a separate
networked drive(connected or mounted).

The longest delay in any of the above(and probably expected) is when
opening an HEIC photo in OneDrive online in a browser..still only a few
seconds.

--
....w?

So a bit more info of what I see. From Windows 11, I am opening up a HEIC photo from a network drive on a Linux box that is shared via CIFS.

When I click the photo in Explorer, photo immediately opens and displays but I cannot make an menu action or close it for 10 seconds or more. If I attempt to click red x multiple times, eventually get the end task prompt. If I wait the 10+ seconds, menu actions and closing works as expected.

Using other programs doesn't show this behavior

Didn't try with 32-bit version of Irfanview - only 64-bit.

The W11 Photo.App is a Metro.App that uses WebView2 for display purposes.
And WebView2 is an instance of MSEdge (it's the "engine" component
of MSEdge). It is possible, in Task Manager, that before you
attempted to open the photo, WebView2 was in Suspend State. And
something happened to WebView2 to affect its performance
when it returned to Run State. Like needing to fetch executable code
from storage, while it is "waking up". It also needs to access
the HEVC/HEIC CODEC solution so the Photo.App can display the
content, and WebView2 populates the frame with the graphics.

In other words, the combination is "maximum bloat", in terms
of the "warm up" behavior when executed. If you are using a
HDD instead of an SSD, that could be part of it. If the
machine is low on RAM, there could even be Memory Compressor
activity. To view Memory Compressor activity, a copy of
Sysinternals Process Explorer (like a Task Manager0, it can
show you whether the Memory Compressor is regularly running.
A low RAM situation can cause additional delay while the
Memory Compressor does stuff.

If I were to use IrfanView, drag and drop the CIFS photo
onto the IrfanView window pane, the image would appear
a lot faster, because Irfanview is win32 EXE and a lot more
of it is loaded into memory and ready to go.

Paul

I found the issue - this is how I fixed it

In IrfanView, change Options > Sort file list to Name or Date modified, and do not use EXIF date. IrfanView specifically calls EXIF-date sorting out as a cause of this slowdown

In IrfanView, turn off Properties > Browsing > View all files as a test. IrfanView's FAQ shows that this setting controls file browsing behavior.

Once I did these two things - the problem resolved.

Hope this helps others.


This is a response to the post seen at: http://www.jlaforums.com/viewtopic.php?p=701724307#701724307

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