Okay, this has really gotten annoying lately.  Whenever I have a folder full of jpegs (say a couple hundred), Windows will basically sit there for at least a full minute at 100% CPU usage trying to give them all icons...  So I go into the folder, and the whole list (it's not set to 'thumbnail') of jpgs has that 'unknown' file icon on each one.  Then, it goes through and changes each of them into the Photoshop icon (have PS7 installed)...  It takes forever, and usually, Explorer (or the program I'm using to navigate the folder) will lockup until it's done.
Is this normal w/ WinXP, or is it some kind of setting w/ Photoshop?  I don't know what it's trying to do... like make thumbnail previews for each jpeg or something, but it's so very irritating.

Any ideas?  I tried googling for a solution, but I don't even know what to search for.

BTW, I have a 1.8ghz AMD 2500, 1.5gigs of RAM and 2 7200RPM 8meg cache HDs.

Just for clarification, what is your folder view set to?
So it first loads the unknown icon then it loads the photoshop icon?

I always set it to 'list.'
And yeah, they all start out w/ the unkown icon, then (going down the list) get the PS one.  I think that's pretty normal, it just usually happens so fast that you don't notice.  It just seems like Windows/PS is trying to do something to each file... Like create the little preview you get when you click on an image... The thing is, I don't want that.  It takes too long w/ so many images in a folder.  It makes certain folders like landmines.

Go to your explorer:
-Click on Tools --> Folder Options
-Choose File Types
-Go down a bit until you find JPG and JPEG (2 separate entries)
-Look if there's a program already assigned to them
-If NOT: Choose Advanced and then choose the program you want to manage them and don't forget to click on "Always use this program...".
-If YES: Choose Change and select the program you want to manage them and don't forget to click on "Always use...."

That should do the trick...

If not, choose delete and reasign with the method above...

They're already assigned to Photoshop for 'Open' and I setup 'Preview' to open them in Windows Picture/Fax viewer...

All my jpegs are assigned to be opened by photoshop.

And does your cat's breath smell like cat food?

No. like pancakes.

Well your cat probaly was playing with that bunny with a pancake on it's head.

Under Tools--> Folder Options (when in Windows Explorer), there is a check box on the View tab for "do not cache thumbnails".

No idea what that does... but it sounds like something that could help.