Explorer Slow With Files

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

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

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

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

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

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

"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

Has anyone found another solution to this? I recently started experiencing
the same issue on my XP Home SP2 box. Right clicking on most (not all)
non-executable files produces a long 30+ second pause before the menu
appears. Double-clicking these same file types gets the same very delayed
response before they are finally opened in the appropriate associated
application.

Only change I am aware of is that I uninstalled my nVidia software, reseated
the card (actually removed card to use in another system, then put back
before powering back on), powered up & reinstalled the same version of the
nVidia software I had been using (77.72).

I do have an HP Scanner attached, but no HP software is running in
taskmanager, or shown in any startup areas (registry, start menu).

This is immensely annoying! I'm really hoping to avoid a complete reinstall.

I'm having the same issue and I found that killing the "BTTRAY.EXE" (WIDCOMMs
Bluetooth app) process from the task manager took care of the problem. Now, I
just need to find out why this was causing the problem...

"Jon Kelly" wrote:



"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

Has anyone found another solution to this? I recently started experiencing
the same issue on my XP Home SP2 box. Right clicking on most (not all)
non-executable files produces a long 30+ second pause before the menu
appears. Double-clicking these same file types gets the same very delayed
response before they are finally opened in the appropriate associated
application.

Only change I am aware of is that I uninstalled my nVidia software, reseated
the card (actually removed card to use in another system, then put back
before powering back on), powered up & reinstalled the same version of the
nVidia software I had been using (77.72).

I do have an HP Scanner attached, but no HP software is running in
taskmanager, or shown in any startup areas (registry, start menu).

This is immensely annoying! I'm really hoping to avoid a complete reinstall.

I came by the thread as I searched for a solution to a problem I am having
with opening folders. I click on my computer, but instead of showing my
drives a little torch appears and begins searching for them. I never had this
problem before until I had to reinstall Windows XP Pro and while it worked
fine for a while, I installed my HP software and that's when it all went
haywire. I now have to wait when trying to open my drive folders and also
connecting to the internet. It makes no sense since before I reinstalled I
had no problem at all even with HP....Hmmm....Very strange...

"Kevin Lyons" wrote:

I'm having the same issue and I found that killing the "BTTRAY.EXE" (WIDCOMMs
Bluetooth app) process from the task manager took care of the problem. Now, I
just need to find out why this was causing the problem...

"Jon Kelly" wrote:



"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

Has anyone found another solution to this? I recently started experiencing
the same issue on my XP Home SP2 box. Right clicking on most (not all)
non-executable files produces a long 30+ second pause before the menu
appears. Double-clicking these same file types gets the same very delayed
response before they are finally opened in the appropriate associated
application.

Only change I am aware of is that I uninstalled my nVidia software, reseated
the card (actually removed card to use in another system, then put back
before powering back on), powered up & reinstalled the same version of the
nVidia software I had been using (77.72).

I do have an HP Scanner attached, but no HP software is running in
taskmanager, or shown in any startup areas (registry, start menu).

This is immensely annoying! I'm really hoping to avoid a complete reinstall.

Hi,

I had this problem some time ago. It turned out that when you opened a
mapped drive or a network folder, XP wanted to read through ALL of the
subdirectories to get all of the information before it opened the folder. I
had found the solution before, and am looking again since a new computer on
my network has the problem again.

The problem was also increased by allowing XP to search for all files and
folders and printers on the network. All of this network traffic slows
things down, especially when network places and names change and the computer
cannot keep up with humans.

Bill

"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