"all Programs" Very Slow To Populate In Xp

adkmom · Joined: Jun 18, 2003 Posts: 469

I'm talking, like, 10 full seconds or more to get the program list to show. Doesn't matter if it's reg. XP or classic. Only start-up items are the bare-bones. Minimal number of programs actually loaded (perhaps 20 total including MS Office).

All basic speed tweaks are done- indexing off, performance over "looks" done in system performance settings, error-checking, disk clean-up & defrag run. Free space is 81%, RAM is 512mb, CPU 1.8 Celeron.

I ran Adaware & Spybot- Norton is on & updated.

The only thing I found on Google was one post referring to a machine that was on a network- & that perhaps because some of the programs that were listed in the start menu were on a server, it was having trouble finding/populating these? However- this is only me trying to view the programs list- not actually clicking on anything...

Ideas appreciated. I'm just trying to get this tuned & running better for a local, non-profit,

Tracy

Gary66 · Joined: Sep 01, 2005 Posts: 8353

If your machine is trying to access programs that are on a server with your network, then yes that could slow it down. You might want to run a program called Memtest86 to test your memory. Norton is also a resource Hog, you may want to consider replacing it with either Avast or AVG. Both are free.

adkmom · Joined: Jun 18, 2003 Posts: 469

Rons · Joined: Dec 07, 2002 Posts: 5667

Just remove the links or network drive icons that are looking for the phanthom network drives. Smile

mommabear · Joined: Feb 20, 2003 Posts: 6319

Look in Folder options, View, and make sure "automatically search for network folders and printers" is unticked. That might help.

FormalDaHyde · Joined: Jan 02, 2005 Posts: 1511

clhenry

Something else you might want to think about. After running all the clean up utility's, ie= spybot, and others. Go to the doc's web site,
http://theshadow.members.atlantic.net/
"He is showing as the shadow now" And download a little program that he wrote, called xpclean., and run that. I was amazed at the speed difference after running that on computers that i had just cleaned. Can't hurt, thats for sure.
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Image URL: http://www.rfhq.com/hqn/html/emoticons/stretchsmile.gif

adkmom · Joined: Jun 18, 2003 Posts: 469

Thanks for the great ideas!

Tracy

User: inactive Posts:

Adkmom,
It's already obvious to any reader that you're not going to do what we tell you. Hundreds of thousands of words have already been written about what a real dog Norton AV or ISS, etc. is. And yet in spite of every expert on this and a g'zillion other forums telling you to shut that dog down, you insist on keeping it.

How can we really help you, no matter how much we'd like to, if you won't just do what we tell you?

Several times a week I set down to some lady's computer that's running like pure unadulterated crap and the first thing I do is remove Norton. At once, she can see that the computer is running better. VOILA, who would'a thunk it? If Norton refuses to come out cleanly, I run my Norton Killer that removes all Norton files and folders and then strips the Registry of 1891 entries that Norton leaves there.

At each stage, I reboot the PC so my customer can see how much better the system is booting up and running.

Then I procede to install my XPCleanup program, tweak the registry to greatly improve Windows XP performance and DE-Install all the Garbage Software that was installed by the computer manufacturer.
Then I run a little script that I wrote to disable all un-needed Services.
And, I run MSCONFIG and disable every single program that's not absolutely needed. I usually deminish that run list by 50% or more.

Then I install and run "Easy Cleaner" to clean up the registry and then I install and run NTREGOPT.exe to compress (defragment) the registry.
You can get all these little programs and much more from my Download Site.

User: inactive Posts:

Sorry, the board did it again....bouble posted.

User: inactive Posts:

This board is going nuts....sorry for the duplicate post.

keastland · Joined: Dec 19, 2008 Posts: 2

Wow... way to put an end to the thread with your arrogance, Shadow.

As much as you'd like to simply blame one single application, you're wrong. I work for a large corporation and we are just now experiencing this same issue on multiple WinXP machines... and we don't run Norton or any other resource intensive hog like that.

You seem like a pretty smart person, you should know that there is rarely one single answer for any issue.

With that being said, I've done the basic settings like turnin off the "Show shadows..." and change the reg setting for MenuShowDelay... but yet the problem persists. I've Googled it and have not found any other ideas. Processor doesn't seem to be getting bogged down. Plenty of RAM....

Ideas?

goretsky

Hello,

You picked up a two-year old message thread, so I am not sure how many replies--if any--you will receive.

When I hear about problems like yours I wonder if there could be a trust relationship issue between your workstations and the primary domain that causes a delay between the shortcuts appearing: For some reason, the local operating system is having to verify its permission to display them with the domain controller, and there is a problem of some sort resulting in an error or at least a slowdown in performance.

Were there any recent changes made to the workstations, servers or network topology that could be introducing delays or alternate routes to the servers on the network from the workstations?

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

drwho07 · Joined: Nov 29, 2007 Posts: 1546 Location: Central FL, USA

keastland · Joined: Dec 19, 2008 Posts: 2

Yeah, I knew it was old, but I wasn't finding any other resources out there with any useful info. So I thought reviving this thread might help.

However, in the time since I posted that, I think we've cleared up our problem. Apparently one of the links in the All Programs list was trying to utilize a network resource. So it was just simply taking time to establish a connection. Once we deleted that program from the All Programs list, the list populates quickly as it should.

Hope that helps someone out there.