Does Win 10 have an issue pulling large files to hard drive from disc?
Should I break the GOG game into multiple rar files on the discs I back up to?

Not sure. But what I am aware is that Win10 has a lot of issues dealing with folders with ogg files within. It use to freeze my computer for minutes trying to identify them or show them or whatever. Probably if you are trying to copy that folder to another one, win10 takes its time or freezes a relative time.

In my rig a folder with around 20 ogg files used to freeze between five to ten minutes. I used to think it was my laptp or the hardrive speed.
So with your permission I would like to take advantage of this thread. Is it only me? is it standard behaviour? could it be the cause for the OP problems?

Check if it's caused by windows defender (so try to disable real-time protection from windows defender)

I don't have Win10, but here it seems there's some kind of solution for that:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/painfully-slow-file-operations-on-ogg-and-opus/2258df33-7380-43aa-bd5c-2c8053c02ecf
Quite a weird behaviour for an OS, btw..

Not sure if it's the same problem as the OP tho, since he mentioned "large files".
That could simply be an optical drive issue.

Thanks a lot for the info. I am sure it will be very useful.
Yes, weird behaviour with the ogg files, indeed. I don't know if it can be an OS bug of a collateral effect of other Win 10 features dealing with some kind of audio files.

Greetings.

Seems to be that damn file indexing thingie then... I try to remember to switch if off completely whenever I can.

Another problem I seem to be having often in Windows is that File Explorer decides for me in what kind of view I want to see the files.

For instance, if it is a folder containing (mainly) jpg images and such, if automatically switches it to show them as thumbnails, even if I've set "Details" or "List" as the default view. Or if the folder contains audio (.mp3) files, Windows decides for me that I want a special "details" view where it shows the metadata for all those audio files, if available. No, I'd prefer to have the same view as with any other folders I operate.

Maybe those can be disabled somewhere... I just hate how Windows just seems to want to decide and make assumptions for me, like "this is probably what you wanted, right?". How about no?

Then again I am the guy who always switches off auto-correction etc. on my phones, word processors etc.

Mhm, that's so Microsoft. Treating their customers like they're all technologically challenged. "No reason for you to think or worry, we will do everything for you, since we know what's best for you. *pat on the head*"

To be fair, around 80% of their target demographic is at that level when it comes to computers.

Yeah same, I just disable the service and remove the index from drives.
Windows search is crap anyway. That's one of the bulls**t MS changed in Win7.
Like the untoggable full-row select or the auto-sorting after renaming.

The only way to fix views is to reset them all, then create specific ones for each folder type and then backup the registry entries. A big unnecessary PITA.

I always assumed that it was a problem about ignored read only permissions. They always use to be reseted or ignored in the majority of folders, anyway.

Just a guess, but has the disc been finalised?

If the files have been just burnt in, but the disc hasn't been closed, then maybe the drive doesn't know where the files area on the disc actually ends. You can indeed change things like that.

In any Explorer view choose folder settings, and you can check a good number of options, like whether to show hidden files or not, whether to show file extensions or not, whether to open folders in the same or different windows, whether to run them as a single or multiple process.

And you can also choose to use chosen settings for all folder views.

There are also some power tools that can be used to tweak settings like these.

It sometimes goes to levels where it makes life harder for those 80% as well, like the default behavior of Windows (since XP?) where it actively hides file extensions from users, and then if and when the time comes that the file extension should be changed on some file, those users can't figure it out what they even are (as they've never even seen them).

I guess Microsoft's idea was that they want to "protect" the dummy users so that they don't accidentally change file extensions and make some files non-executable or whatever, but come on...

Another example is the "fast startup" feature that is enabled by default on Windows 10. Sure it is nice it makes Windows boot up faster I guess... but it confuses newbies when they hit a problem that doesn't go away if they shut Windows down and then start it, not understanding they should instead restart the system, in order to really get a clean boot (which fixes quite many problems by itself). A technically illiterate friend of mine had to contact me because his mouse had stopped working, and yeah he had tried to "restart" the system several times by running shutdown and start, and the problem persisted. It didn't go away until I told him to perform a restart instead.

It confused me as well when I asked him "have you tried restarting your Windows already?", and he said "Yes, several times.". No he had not, he just assumed that shutdown + boot is the very same thing, and I can't really blame him for that.

I could tell that guy how to disable fast startup, but for some odd reason Microsoft decided to hide it so that you can't even toggle it by default. Why? Why is MS so afraid users would switch if off?

Many times MS, in their "well-meaning" ways, makes the life just harder even for those 80% of their users. Generally, I'd prefer Windows would try to educate the newbies of correct ways to do things and common pitfalls of what to avoid, instead of actively trying to prevent them from doing or seeing things.

Yes I am pretty sure I've done that already... yet when Windows (in this case 7, not sure if 10 still behaves the same way as I am generally not operating my local archives on my Windows 10 PC) sees a folder either with (mostly) picture files and photos, or audio files, it just decides to change the view to something else from the default.

Yes yes the thumbnail view where you can see a glimpse of your photos can certainly be useful when sorting photos (e.g. when you want to delete similar photos, if you happened to take 30 photos of the same view with your camera) and stuff, and sometimes it is nice to see the metadata for all your mp3 files or whatever (even in File Explorer)... but Windows shouldn't decide for me when I want to use those views. Let me decide when to enable them.

Hmm, if they would educate those users, then something else might happen. People would probably open their eyes and replace Windows with something else. Microsoft needs a quiet, chill userbase, one that will not raise hell when something goes wrong. So far, so good for MS. When it comes to the user, well, you can easily tell what the deal is.

Nope, .ogg files are slow here too... expecially icons

edit: someone says that Web Media Extensions cause that freeze with .ogg files

if it's true try to remove it and retry (remember that you will need another program to open these files; i suggest VLC)

to remove Web Media Extensions

Start / Settings / Apps

remember that after a format that extension will be installed...

edit2: i confirm this bug with that extension...

i think that there is a conflict between that extension and indexing, but microsoft for now does nothing...

Also someone says that Groove Music can cause this

@OP
It may very well be caused by your AV, but don't disable it, just go into settings and make an exception for the drive in question or specific folder(s).

Certain file types can slow things up more than others when they are checked by your AV.

And as has been suggested by timppu, go to the properties tab of an external drive and disable indexing, which is unfortunately enabled by default. It's really only useful for speeding up file searches on that drive, but meanwhile penalizes your PC use in other ways. I only leave it enabled for my PC drive, and disable it for all external drives.

Optical drives can be very slow with large GB files. So yes if you feel the need to use discs it is better to burn smaller files. That said, it is far more cost effective and usually a lot more reliable to use external drives instead of discs ... discs are old school now, and were never that reliable on average.