Preventing Windows Explorer from loading directory data

[Wassercrats]

I have several directories containing hundreds of thousands of files each on an external hard drive. When I view the list of these directories in Windows Explorer, the hard drive works for a long time to determine the sizes of the directories. Meanwhile, hovering over a directory shows "Size: larger than..." How do I tell Explorer to not make the hard drive look all that up? I just want a listing. I want the size and other information of a particular directory to be looked up only when I hover over it or view properties.

I'll be finding a solution to this somehow, even if it takes a registry edit or a different file manager. It's bad enough that I have to write a custom file copying tool because xcopy and robocopy crash when used with my directories. I don't want to write my own file manager too.

[ryount]

Can't help you with the file sizes but I usually stick this into the registry at:

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem
If it's not there, create a DWORD named NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate and set it to 1.

It helps quite a bit when there's a large amount of files. If you do a Google search on NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate you can find more info on it.

[Wassercrats]

Yes, I intend to use every one of Fsutil's behavior commands (http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/fsutil_behavior.mspx), and more. I'm having a serious problem backing up these files.