Applications starting after long delay

[pmarchwiak]

I am experiencing a strange problem. Sometimes when I attempt to launch
applications the hourglass will show for a couple seconds and then
nothing will happen. Once this happens I am unable to launch any other
applications. I noticed that sometimes when I try to launch task
manager it will sort of "jump start" all the other applications and
they will all begin to open at once. But then sometimes I am unable to
open task manager also. They then launch still all at the same time a
few minutes later. Does anyone have any ideas of what could be causing
this?

 

[Malke]

I am experiencing a strange problem. Sometimes when I attempt to
launch applications the hourglass will show for a couple seconds and
then nothing will happen. Once this happens I am unable to launch any
other applications. I noticed that sometimes when I try to launch task
manager it will sort of "jump start" all the other applications and
they will all begin to open at once. But then sometimes I am unable to
open task manager also. They then launch still all at the same time a
few minutes later. Does anyone have any ideas of what could be causing
this?

The First Question Of Troubleshooting: what changed between the time
things worked and the time they didn't?

The Second Question of Windows Troubleshooting: what is the
malware/virus status of the machine? If you think it is clean, what
programs (and versions) did you use to determine this?

Be sure the computer is clean:
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Removing_Malware

In your case, I would answer the second question first.

Malke