Congrats!
BTW, the only buggy software on my XP also comes from HP
(Scanner..supposed to be XP compatible, but freezes the startup
process for ~10secs...annoying but I live with it)
Also, the only hardware failure I had in many years of working
with PC's was an HP CD-RW.

"Fifthgen Guy" wrote in message
...
OMG!!! I found this one. This time, it showed up because of a clean boot
(turning off almost everything). In short, hpOFXM07.exe for my HP
Officejet
V40 software is the culprit. If I kill it, the problem immediately
disappears. If I fire it up again, I go into the huge timeouts. I tried
uninstalling and reinstalling the printer software (this is the fax junk,
etc, scanner software, etc. that comes with the printer). It complained
that
part of the install was "Unable to start the application--the Java Virtual
Machine cannot be loaded." So, I'm guessing that after a do a reinstall
of
winxp, things would stop working properly after I had to install newer
java
for some program - don't remember that, so probably something automatic.
But, this is a guess.

I'm also guessing that the FX in the name means that this is some driver
for
the FAX interface - which I don't use. So, if you have this program
running
on your system, kill it (or close the hp printer icon in your systray) and
see if your system starts working again.

Just insane... but, true..??

-- Joe B.


"Mike Ferrie" wrote:

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll take a look at the link when I get a
chance
over the next day or two.
One of the first things I checked out was an alternative user profile.
Even
with a newly created user the symptoms are the same. Good idea though.

Mike


"Fifthgen Guy" wrote:

We could be talking about 2 different mechanisms. Sometimes, I think,
I get
into your same state. A reboot seems to get me out of that one. Of
course,
it doesn't make me happy that I have to reboot, nor that this
unresolved
problem goes unaddressed and I am left with living with it or doing
something
drastic.

With previous problems (I use GLINT which shows how the resources are
used
on the system) some of my counters in WinXP disappeared. I tried
zooming in
on registry entries and had conversations with the GLINT author. Then
I
tried taking wholesale chunks of the registry and replacing them with
"equivalent" chunks from a working machine. This takes hours and hours
and
reboots all over the place. I didn't find the problem - finally
reinstalled
winxp pro. The value in doing the registry testing is that I can find
where
the problem lies and do that from then on instead of reinstalling or
begging
for help from the MS gurus.

I was able to find some test software to eliminate some possibilities.
Because my 1st problem was between IExplorer and a non-MS program (an
IRC
program), I chased down the IRC: "device" and looked for specific
references
to the program and figured out how to feed data to the test program to
simulate the situation. I figured this was RPC and was testing the
DDEEXEC
function. These start as guesses in the dark. I came across the
tester at
http://www.taltech.com/support/dde_sw/comtest.htm if you are
interested.

With your problem, have you tried it as a different user on your
machine? I
find some problems follow the user's registry and others do not.

-- Joe B.


"Mike Ferrie" wrote:

Hi,

I've read this discussion with interest and I sympathise with the
frustration. Your problem may be a bit different to mine. I get the
delay
with non-MS files too. PDF and TXT show the same symptoms. I think it
must be
something to do with file associations but I don't know what.
I've been using the same box for three years now without having
reinstalled
Windows. With lots of apps being installed and uninstalled over that
time, I
think the registry is most likely to be a bit screwed up.

"Fifthgen Guy" wrote:

It could be -- the registry is a big area, however. I have
previously run
sfc, hacked at the registry to replace huge chunks with registry
from
elsewhere, and after many hours of trying these things, finally
just rebuilt
winxp. I've only partially tried it this time. For some other
problems, I
have been able to guess at what to change by comparing registries
from other
machines (don't have one particularly close to this setup right
now).
Fortunately, the last time I rebuilt winxp, there was little that I
had to
reinstall afterwards. That was a surprise, but then maybe I've
rebuilt it so
often that I don't bother to put in the tweaks to make it faster,
etc. so
there is no longer much to fix afterwards?

I see plenty of messages out on the net where people are having
this
problem. I see the "it must be a virus" response and then after
they have
the victim run hijackthis, the replies stop. So, I think, by far,
just about
everyone is writing this off as a virus that "someone else" can
fix. A lot
of people have run into this and it is being dismissed as a virus
thing - it
isn't.

A fix would be very nice to have, a diagnostic to point in the
direction
would be nice, a document of the interprocess communications for
explorer
would be OK to scan and get ideas from. Alas, silence... ;-)

Don't know if I mentioned it before, but when I click on a PDF or
other
non-MS file, I get fast response. I click on XLS, DOC, HTM, etc.,
I run into
the long delays. 1 minute to fire up excel, another minute to load
the XLS,
etc. So, MS is using some mechanism for its own use that is not in
play for
other programs.

"WRH" wrote:

Could some Explorer registry setting be weird?
The .zip file is my explorer settings, known to
be ok. In compairson with yours, maybe some
parameter will stand out as being odd...

"Fifthgen Guy" wrote in
message
...
Sad to say, yes... I did think of it. In the "old days" this
was a big
problem with my win98. Here again, it would be great to know
why explorer
is
just sitting and timing out. But that is not the case here.
In fact,
just
to be extra cautious, I rebooted with the network shut off - in
case of
any
lingering info in memory. No diff.

It is driving me nutz! I'm almost to the point again that
I'll just
reinstall WinXP PRO. But this is silly. There must be a
diagnostic or
real
solution out there.

Thanks for the thought, however! -- Joe

"WRH" wrote:

One final thought...you probably checked this already but
does the problem occur when the PC is not physically connected
to any network and there are no mapped drives?

"Fifthgen Guy" wrote
in message
...
Nice thought, but nope. This is not a thing where the
system is busy
in
any
way. I have zip files turned off (use winrar) and have
other overhead
junk
turned off. With GLINT, I can watch cpu, disk I/O, memory
use, cache
use,
etc. All very idle. (Also use process explorer to what
over all tasks
and
gross activity.) This is some whacko timeout thing going
on. It is
like
explorer tries to send a message, times out, then forces the
issue and
things
start to respond. Response times start at 60 sec., and I've
seen 120
sec
and
I think 90 sec. Maybe there is some 30 sec. timeout and it
normally
takes
2.
But, in any case, tain't a resource overload thing in any
way. And,
with
all files in the same place, I can get this corrected by
reinstalling
winxp
pro. [I have all the latest updates, merged SP2 into my
winxp cd, made
it
bootable - which it wasn't before, so when I rebuild, I
automatically
have
SP2 in there.]

It took a while to be sure that it wasn't IExplorer. I
installed
firefox
and found it had the exact same problems. Also, left
clicking on a PDF
file
will fire up immediately, but sometimes, clicking on a word
or excel
file
will take 60 or 120 sec to fire up -- and then another 60
sec to
actually
load the file. No disk activity, cpu activity, etc. during
that time.
Just
the normal dribbles. This is clearly some timeout thing.

With the lack of tools, I've done crazy things like creating
another
user
to
see if it is a user thing. Then, worse, I take chunks of
the registry
and
replace it with chunks from another system, etc. Of course,
this leads
to
disasters - but such is the life of testing with no tools...
;-)

Someone in the bowels of MS knows what this is and has a
quick way of
verifying the problem. After all, when an interprocessor
message of
some
sort doesn't make it and a timeout occurs, someone knows
which thing is
failing and probably why. That is a big part of the
frustration. I
have
no
tools to find this myself and I don't see any real help out
here. Just
the
usual "it must be a virus", which, admittedly is very
frequently the
case
for
a lot of people.

Thanks for the try, though!

-- Joe

"WRH" wrote:

Hello
Do you have .zip files in the root directories you're
looking
at? If so, move them to a sub-folder. (Win Xp unpacks root
..zip stuff)


"Fifthgen Guy" Fifthgen
wrote in
message
...
I've been looking for the same thing for months. Keep
coming across
"you
must have a virus" and "your network is slow" bull. Very
frustrating.
It
would help if I could find some tools to tell me WHY
explorer is
waiting,
WHY
a program is timing out before something happens. I see
these 60
sec.,
90
sec., 180 sec. delay and NOTHING is claiming to be having
a problem.
I
have
reinstalled WinXP Pro 3 times now -- cleans it up, but
that is
rediculous.
No, my machine was not hijacked. I run glint and see
NOTHING going
on
while
it just sits.

I'm a systems guy, wrote some network code, OS code,
firmware,
designed
some
hardware, so it is real frustrating that I can look at
see what
explorer
is
waiting for. No indications, no tools and no one has
even hinted at
a
real
fix. I've mashed around the registry in hopes of
tripping across a
solution.
Nope!

If I find my way back here, I'll let you know what I
found, but as I
said,
I've been looking for months...

"Mike Ferrie" wrote:

Hi,

I'm looking for help with a frustrating problem that has
happened
on
my
PC.
Essentially the symptoms are this:
1.Opening files through Windows Explorer results in a 20
to 30
second
pause
before the files open. This happens on local and network
drives.
2.Executable files or applications open immediately.
Also files
open
immediately from inside the application e.g. from Excel
open dialog
box.
3. In explorer, right-clicking on files results in a
20-30 second
delay
in
bringing up the menu, while with executables the menu
comes up
immediately.
The system is XP SP2. What I have tried so far is:
Reapplied the Service Pack
System restore to before the problem manifested itself
Disconnected and reconnected mapped drives.

Any suggestions would be gratefully received before I go
ahead and
reinstall.

Thanks