On Windows, you should switch to WizTree. Rather than recursively calling directory listing functions, it directly reads and parses the file tables itself. This makes it orders of magnitude faster. I have a 2 TB hard drive full of a million files, and WizTree reads and parses it all in under a minute, whereas I can expect WinDirStat to take half an hour.

On an SSD, WizTree only takes a couple seconds.

For all the hate NTFS gets, MFT has led to the creation to two amazing tools: Everything and WizTree. Unfortunately both proprietary although freeware.

Thanks for the suggestion!

You should try Directory Report on Windows. It is faster than WinDirStat. Has more filtering and reporting than WinDirStat. Can find duplicate files too