why must windows pause when a dvd/cd is inserted?

[spyordie007]

The "My Computer" window should "pause" for a second or so while the CD is mounted because it is displaying information about the CD that is getting loaded (name, icon, etc.) however if you do a couple of things it shouldnt be effecting your other applications (or even other explorer windows):
1. Enable the "launch folder windows in separate processes" option (so that other explorer windows dont pause while it is mounted)
2. On a much simpler level (I'm surprised nobody has mentioned it) ensure that your CD drive is not on the same IDE channel as another hard drive you are accessing. IDE can only "talk" to one device at a time, so if there are multiple devices on your IDE channel data access to them will be temporarily "paused" whenever the CD drive is accessed.

Windows itself should not be pausing, just the processes that are waiting on something on the CD drive (like your explorer window that is viewing My Computer).

 

[Nothinman]

Windows itself should not be pausing, just the processes that are waiting on something on the CD drive (like your explorer window that is viewing My Computer).

The fact that all of your windows are managed by Explorer makes it seem like everything pauses when Explorer does. The kernel itself may still be working fine, but it's not much use if you can't interface with it.

 

[CrispyFried]

That pause has been there since the days of DOS. Drives me crazy too.

 

[Jaskalas]

This drives me crazy too. For example when opening the menu to pick my music based on Album in WMP the program will pause until the drives spin up and yield their information. Luckily it somewhat caches the information so it doesn?t annoy me every time I open that menu, merely every time I open WMP up.

Also.. as you have mentioned, in explorer it will pause too for drive information. Which is annoying if I?m merely browsing to reach a hard drive, which happens often.

 

[imported_Phil]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Windows itself should not be pausing, just the processes that are waiting on something on the CD drive (like your explorer window that is viewing My Computer).

The fact that all of your windows are managed by Explorer makes it seem like everything pauses when Explorer does. The kernel itself may still be working fine, but it's not much use if you can't interface with it.

Indeed.
"Folders in seperate processes" is already turned on here, and it still does it.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: bsobel

Originally posted by: TonyRic
It is due to MS use of the synchronous I/O STILL. I don't understand why they haven't changed this behavior. OS/2 went async in 2.0 and Linux always has been.

This is incorrect, I/O is most certainly not synchronous.

And Linux has not always been this way, in fact asynch IO was a major feature of 2.6

I get it too anyway, lasts the time it takes for the disc to spin up.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I get the pause too, but I have to have "my computer" opened to notice it. In 2000 it's not that bad though.

 

[lansalot]

Would a decent SCSI system not disconnect and call back when the IO is complete? Anyone with a decent enough SCSI subsystem including CDROM care to try it?

Damnit I want answers!

 

[Nothinman]

Would a decent SCSI system not disconnect and call back when the IO is complete? Anyone with a decent enough SCSI subsystem including CDROM care to try it?

Sure it would, but that won't help explorer blocking on whichever syscall is waiting for the disc to spinup.