Annoying Problem with Windows XP !!!

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Hi everyone, Hope all are well and enjoying the lovely cold weather! Have started to study on my own now but have come across a very annoying problem with Windows.

I have Windows XP home edition on my PC. The problem with it is that after start-up for a variable length of time I cannot right-click on any file in folders on my c drive, desktop etc. It causes the computer to freeze as it tries to figure out what is going on. A ctrl-alt-delete later tell me that the folders are not responding.
What is really wierd is that after a while it works....Anyone come across this before? And more to the point does anyone know how to sort it out?

Many thanks all.



L


Admin note(J): Moved to software Forum

 

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Hi Larim,

I'm experiencing a similar problem on a friend's PC. Basically, it's a manufacturer's version on XP Home, and customised to within an inch of it's registry (aka a COMPLETE mess). There's no right-click option on any icon, and when Task Manager finally opens, there's everything under the sun running on there !!!

So is your version a clean XP distro, or a version of ? Basically, the PC I mention above is about to get totally flattened as soon as I get the go ahead from the friend.

HTH

 

is it only folders/icons on a perticular drive? does my computer also lag for a while when you open it? this is usually a sign of a corupt disk, be it a CD thats in the drive and windows is having a hard time reading, or worse, a hard disk error

Jaks answer is also pretty likley, so see if you can narrow it down a bit based on the info provided, but a flatten may be warranted

 

Agreed with Phoe - the PC I mention also takes forever to even open My Computer, My Network Places, etc. HDD just seems to be in terminal decline and at one point after a reboot, it kicked into a ScanDisk...and this machine was bought just after New Year .....

Which means I may have to advise the owner that their warranty will be affected, they may prefer to contact the manufacturer, and yet again, I miss out on the easy sheckles !!!

 

Apart from the fact that the PC freezes when I try and right-click on a folder (I have timed it to between 30-45 minutes until it starts working normally my pc runs fine and rapid as it should. I am just baffalled by this one problem. Tried Microsoft but they are as useful as ever.
Windows was installed by the manufacturer but I tweeked it to my needs and the issue only started recently. Will have another fiddle with wondows to see if i can sort it but if anyone knows why Windows is behaving in this way please let me know.

Cheers, Lari.

 

You haven't really stated what measures you have already taken to try and sort this problem out. Personally, whenever a computer starts to do odd and unusual things, I would firstly suspect an errant process, one that has been created by a virus or malware.

Does the symptom manifest itself in Safe Mode?

The steps I would take to try and resolve the problem are...

1) Update virus database and run a full scan
2) Make sure windows update has downloaded all critical updates
3) Run Spybot Search and destroy with latest updates
4) Run Ad-Aware with latest updates
5) Install Spyware blaster

If the symptoms persist, use msconfig.exe to disable start up items one by one and test on each re-boot.

If all else fails, re-install the OS and start again

Pete

 

what Bluerinse has said is good advice, although i personally would probably disable all but the processes i KNEW, and knew needed to be running in the startup and re-enable them one by one. but thats more a personal preference rather than anything else.

can you remember what you did just before this started?

Fergal

 

I'd go with Bluerinse on this one. Run through your troubleshooting procedures first and note any changes that seem to occur. When you have gone through them all and tried to use the PC normally, let us know how it responds.

You also mention that it was doing ok up until recently and that you have done a bit of tweaking. Can you tell us what that tweaking involved and have you attempted to reverse it to see what happens?

 

What have you installed recently?

 

It sounds like your hard drive maybe going downhill, another thing you could do is to run performance monitor on your PC and check logicaldisk:current disk queue length which should stay below 2 and disk time which shouldn't go over 50%. If they do then change the page file size in your settings and if that doesn't work you may need to replace the hard drive.

 

No one has mentioned System Restore yet

Have you tried going back to an earlier restore point?

Pete