I have a page that produces little thumbnails of the 3D models it
finds in a specified directory (and iterates down through any sub
directories).
It basically scans each directory for 3D Studio Max files using the
filesystemobjec t and writes an activeX component called iDrop for each
file so it can be displayed on the page (and drag-dropped straight
into Max). If it happens to find a similarly named XML file in the
directory, it loads that and transforms the content with a pre-loaded
XSL stylesheet to provide a summary of the model's size/face
count/etc. This is just for context though, just in case it is
relevant.
In response to complaints that it was running really slowly (from 6 to
13 seconds to scan a directory with 3 models in it), I made a copy of
the page to add debug timers to, so I could see where it was taking
all the time.
This copy completes in between 0.3 and 0.6 seconds for the same
directory.
The code is identical. I can cut and paste the code from the slow file
to the fast one (or vice versa) and it makes no difference to the
execution speed of either file. They both execute using the IUSR_foo
account on the webserver. They are both in the same directory. The
directory they are reading from has read permission for "Everyone".
What gives? How is this possible? What is IIS doing differently for
the two pages? Surely IIS should recompile a page if its modified date
changes, so how can it compile two different execution schemes for the
same code?
The fix for me is to use the new page and not the old one, but I
really want to know what is going on here.
Server is IIS5.0 on Windows 2000 Server
