Fix Windows 7 Freezes When You Try To Rename A Folder [Hotfix]

If your computer is running Windows 7, or Vista, or Windows Server 2008, or Windows Server 2008 R2 and it freezes or stops responding when you try to rename a folder, then applying this hotfix KB980382 released by Microsoft may come handy.

The problem occurs in the following scenario:

  • There is a volume in an NTFS file system on your computer. There are lots of files that are in a folder on this volume. For example, assume that there are more than 5000 files in this folder.
  • Many files in the folder were opened at least one time previously.
  • You try to rename the folder name.

In this scenario, the computer stops responding for some time. Therefore, the computer responds to a mouse button click or to a screen update very slowly.

Note: If the Failover Clustering feature is installed on the computer, the cluster resources that are hosted on the computer fail over to the other nodes because of this issue.

The rename operation for a directory checks whether a file in the folder is opened by a user. During this operation, a volume control block (VCB) lock is obtained, and any other I/O requests to the volume are blocked. If the number of files in the directory is large, this process of checking whether a file is opened may take an unnecessarily long time. Therefore, the computer stops responding for this long time. However, the computer eventually recovers.

To apply this hotfix, you must be running one of the following operating systems:

  • Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1)
  • Windows Vista Service Pack 2 (SP2)
  • Windows Server 2008
  • Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 (SP2)
  • Windows 7
  • Windows Server 2008 R2

[ Download Hotfix KB980382 ]

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