Long delays opening files/programs and right click menu.

[McBain]

I’ve been rolling (not my decision!!) out XP sp1 now on approximately 300 PC’s of various models (Dell GX110, 150, 240, 260 and some other custom built PC’s).

I am now getting an alarming number of people complain that things take ages to open.
I did encounter this problem in testing and discovered that XP, for God only knows what reason, insists on checking all the recent network connection history when trying to open a document – if a network connection was no longer available it had to time out before continuing. Thus a whopping big delay when you do file open from Word (also XP version) or something. This is no longer a major problem.

However, I’m still getting people report serious slow downs and have just (well yesterday) had the same happen to my computer. I have deleted all the network history, but still I get the problem. Typical examples are…
- Double click a link on my desktop – takes up to 2 minutes to open.
- Right click on a file in explorer, takes up to 1 minute to display the menu.
- Open an application from the start menu, takes up to 1 minute to appear.

The problem seems to stay once it’s appeared, although today Word does seem to open in around 10 seconds instead of a minute as per yesterday but all the rest remains.

This has happened to various people at work and with my PC at home which is completely different environment!

Surely other have come across this???
Does anyone have any idea what could be causing it?

Some serious thanks if anyone can shed any light on this....

[daf69fy]

Our CEO experiences the following:

Right Click on any item on the XP desktop (or through Explorer) and from the menu (that pops up instantly) select 'Properties'... then sit back and wait (for up to a minute) before the file properties are displayed. There are too many variables for an easy solution, so I'm trying to narrow down the posibilities by eliminating recent hardware installations and using system restore to determine if a recent patch caused the problem.

Before seeking further assistence, I'll follow the advice proffered in the first post of this forum and submit hardware and software specs using the Belarc program recommended.

I just wanted to let you know that you're not the only one experiencing the problem.

Life and laughter... (still)
Michael

[McBain]

Thanks daf69fy, at least it's not just me!!!

The weird thing is though, it that all the PC's at work have been loaded from an image - thus all are indenticle in setup. We have at least 50 of each model of Dell PC which are all indenticle in spec also. Further more, each users profile is also based on a standard template and so, at least to start with, is also indenticle.

However the problem is not happening to all of them, indeed most of them and the users are not doing anything particularly special or out of the ordinary before it happens!

And then there is my home PC which is a completely different setup and that also has had the problem!

The only thing common to all that have had the problem is Windows XP sp1, Office XP sp2, IE 6 sp1 and the fact that they are all networked, either via a domain or workgroup.

Something must be setting this off... but whatever it is, it wasn't done in testing!!!

Driving me mad...!

[McBain]

Ok, so I've eased the problem on my PC at home by uninstalling the security update number 811493. Now explorer etc opens up almost instantly again rather than the 3 or 4 second delay.

But, at work, things have got a whole lot worse - this morning started well as my PC started opening things quickly again, but come early afternoon, suddendly my PC and at least a dozen around the company had huge delays accessing network drives. Only XP PC's and not all of them!

I'm convined there must be a network location that is being turned off which is somehow linked into the XP installation on some PC's - but I've deleted all the network places history and any other histories I can find.
Anyone have any ideas / experienced this kind of problem? I'm at a loss...

[johndmes]

Have a similar issue to yours, and was able to find a workaround.

On my home system (using XP Professional) I was experiencing massive slowdowns as well. The way to see is, when it's happening, you open Task Manager and see Explorer using 80-98% of your CPU time.

If you have that symptom, there's a workaround I found. It's ugly, but it works.

The reason for the problem has to do with that silly little Preview pane in the left border of the Explorer windows. Whether or not you hactually have the Details folder open, Explorer will try to generate a thumbnail of whatever document you have the highlight on. Is spins off a thread to do this on each file you select. If the built-in thumbnailer knows the file type but for whatever reason can't generate a valid thumbnail (most common with movie files), the thread instead of terminating keeps running, eating CPU time and memory. Not A Good Thing (tm).

The workaround involves a registry tweak to get rid of the left-hand pane in the Explorer windows. It'll reset all Explorer windows to their "classic" look (but will not remove categories).

Easiest way to do it is to download a third-party Windows tweaker (such as FreshUI - TweakUI doesn't have the setting)
In FreshUI, go to "Explorer Interface Settings, select Explorer Classic Settings, then set that key to Yes.

After reboot, you won't have the left-hand pane anymore, and Explorer will no longer show the issue.

FreshUI can be gotten at: www.freshdevices.com

[Daeymon]

Start, Run, type services.msc

Try disabling Computer Browser, and Background intelligent transfer services. (Set them to disabled, and stop them)

If it doesnt work, just enable them again.

[daf69fy]

I uninstalled the 811493 XP update but it didn't correct the following problem: "Right Click on any item on the XP desktop (or through Explorer) and from the menu (that pops up instantly) select 'Properties'... then sit back and wait (for up to a minute) before the file properties are displayed."

Computer Specs:
WinXP Pro Service Pack 1
Office XP Pro
700 MHz AMD Athlon
512 MB Memory
Gigabyte 71XE motherboard
ATI Rage Fury
SONY SDM-N50PS Monitor

[curtybob]

watch out for 811493. lots of results popped up when i searched for it monday, although hardly any today... odd. not really a serious issue. it explains that an attacker would have to access your computer locally, basically sitting in your office chair. i know of a few ways besides this update to fix this. one involves a baseball bat and a call to the authorities.

[TAB]

Hi everyone,

There may in fact be specific problems causing these slowdowns, but at least try cleaning up your computer. If done properly this can do amazing things for your system.

Regards,

TAB

[lnomis]

For more infos:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;819634

[wardb007]

Call Microsoft and get this patch. Worked for me
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;811169

Brian Ward MCSE, MCP+I, CNE, NSA
Senior Network Administrator

[marxeil]

I have the same problem on my home computer. I've removed the offending update, but that didn't help at all.

[Glenn48]

I too have experienced long delays in opening applications since installing XP on my new PC. What I have noticed is that once you close the iexplorer the application ends but remains open as a process in the task manager. Once you close the browser the iexplore process begins chewing up significant CPU and the problems begin. You can go into task manager and manually end the process but it is a pain in the butt. You are ok as long as you leave your browser open but when you close it the delays begin almost immediately. Have no idea why it does it to some machines and not others but it is clearly some kind of bug. I downloaded the Iexplorer service pack but the problem persists.

[NDT]

I tried everything in here and still have the problems...uninstalled the security update...stopped sevices listed here...none of that has any effect...so has anyone figured this problem out? I have been racking my brain on this one and am about ready to just reinstall hehe.

Thanks,
Don

[curtybob]

call IBM, and see if they have some of that magic pixie dust left over from the commercial. you may need it.