Windows explorer opening my computer window slowly.

[nelsonm]

Hi All,

I just installed XP Home on a old dell 2350 Dimension system with a 1.8mhz celeron processor using a slipped streamed XP Home SP3 cd i created. After the initial install, Windows Explorer opened the "My Computer" and other windows very quickly - about 1 second.

Then - i not sure - but things slowed down either after the final round of MS updates or after i installed Avast, Spybot, VLC, Firefox, java, adobe reader and flash, quicktime, and Openoffice. Now explorer opens window panels at about 5 to 10 seconds.

1. Is about a one second explorer window opening response time normal for a clean system install.

2. Does anyone have a clue as to what might be the problem?

 

[technicalguy]

Usually this kind of symptom often reflects a memory shortage - how's your memory usage?
Maybe also your virus scanner is actively scanning while you're trying this?

 

[anonymous Mac Tech]

Then - i not sure - but things slowed down either after the final round of MS updates or after i installed Avast, Spybot, VLC, Firefox, java, adobe reader and flash, quicktime, and Openoffice. Now explorer opens window panels at about 5 to 10 seconds.

Windows isn't my expertise, but you may want to check your running processes, particularly Open Office. OO has agents that load at start-up and are constantly running in the background that are supposed to facilitate loading OO faster when you launch it.

 

[Daifne]

Did you install Windows Search 4.0 when you did the Windows updates? That will slow things horribly until it finishes indexing. I won't install it on my customer's machines.

 

[eric76]

Download a copy of Process Explorer and see what's running on the computer.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

 

[Methical]

I always found a way to speed up the explorer windows if your not connected to a network.

Go to Tools > Folder Options > View Tab.
Theres an option under there to turn of automatic searching for printer and shared folder/files.

Turn that off, you can usually save a cpl seconds with that on a slow machine.

Also change the settings to "Adjust for Best performance" to. I'm sure you know where i'm talkin' bout. I'm not on an xp machine at the moment, so can't find the dialog box, that could also save you a few seconds in loading time

 

[iptech]

Windows Explorer works very well when left to it's own devices. It's when external processes such as Windows Search, Google Desktop, anti-virus, "helper" programs and much malware hook into it that it struggles and consumes CPU cycles especially when they aren't working as intended.

You need to utilise real-time diagnostic tools to identify the cause.

 

[nelsonm]

Thanks for your suggestions guys. I will look into them all. However...

1. I did make sure that indexing was turned off.

2. I will take a closer look at running processes.

3. I will turn off the OpenOffice agent.

4. I believe i did download Windows Search 4. I will terminate the process.

5. I will turn of automatic searching for printer and shared folder/files.

As i said, its a clean install except for the stuff i installed: Avast, Spybot, VLC, Firefox, java, adobe reader and flash, quicktime, and Openoffice. I guess its possible that Avast is just too much for the old Celeron 1.8mhz processor.

In any case, i'll check it out and let you all know.

 

[Methical]

Swap Adobe Reader for Foxit. =)
Have you looked @ the "XP Faster Setting" thread?
One of the members created quite a sweet batch file for it; maybe you ought to give it a try and comment out the lines that you don't want to apply.