FWIW, everyone has their way of working, but this is the way I've always done it with DPP and it works well for me:
I don't do auto downloads that make their own dated folders but prefer to download from the card in folders that I have already made. I make a "Pictures" directory on my C drive, then in that directory I make "year" subfolders. For each year, I will make a dated subfolder with a brief description (the date my photos were shot or dumped) with a numeric prefix (1, 2, 3, etc.) which puts my folders in the order of the download. For each dated subfolder, I make RAW and Edits subfolders as I download. As the year changes, I make that year the "Default" folder in DPP. When I open DPP 4, it opens to the year, so a quick scroll gets me to my downloaded Raw files. This isn't as labor intensive as it sounds 🙂
I've been using DPP for a long time on various Windows computers back to XP. The only slow part of DPP that I experience is when converting my edited Raw files to JPeG or Tiff or its focus stacking, but I am willing to wait as the results are always great. I do always get the best systems when computer shopping, so that could make a difference (lots of RAM, latest CPU, fast bus, fast disc drives, etc.). IIRC, I experienced a "spinning wheel" a long time ago, and it turned out to be a picture sharing app that I had installed which was looking for images every so often. Deleted it, problem solved. I think that was my first post to this forum back in 2014 🙂
Example of my directory structure.
Newton
