Right click menu slow w/networking

[Peter Bako]

I've had a minor issue for a while now, but recently it has gotten to a
point of nearly making my system useless. The system is a Windows XP Pro,
SP2 with 2G of RAM running on a P4 3.4ghz HT system. Basically it manifests
itself in three areas:

* Right click on a file and the right click menu will take nearly 2 minutes
to come up
* Double click on a video or text file and the system will take nearly 3
minutes to launch Windows media player or notepad (depending on the file
double clicked)
* Clicking on a file to select it and the pressing 'delete' on the keyboard
to delete it takes about 2-3 minutes before the system responds and the file
is moved to the trash (video files are the slowest by far, but other files
take up to a minute as well)

Trying to troubleshoot this problem I discovered a couple of things:

* If I disable my network card, then none of these delays occur, but
everything works as expected.
* If I manually drag and drop a file into the trash there is no delay (with
or without the NIC enabled)
* If I launch Windows Media Player and drag a vide file into it to play
there is no delay (with or without the NIC card)


While I do have a few apps hooked into my right-click menu (winzip and
textpad) it isn't all that much, but more importantly I've had the same
setup for a while now, yet the problem has only gotten this bad in the last
3 months or so. Since the problem goes away when the network is
disconnected, its logical to assume that something is trying to connect to a
network service and taking a while to time out. So I've ran netstat -a
before and after to see what the differences are, but I can account for
nearly every item on that list, and the ones I cannot do not show up
consistently.

Anyone else seen this kind of behavior and can offer any suggestions before
I just bite the bullet and blow away the entire system? While that would
most certianly be a solution, I do not really have the time to take a half a
day or so to reinstall my entire system.

Thanks,
Peter

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

Right-click is extremely slow only when Network is enabled:
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/rcdelay.htm

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows Shell/User]
The Winhelponline Blog: http://www.winhelponline.com/blog
Windows® Troubleshooting: http://www.winhelponline.com

 

[Peter Bako]

I've already seen this article and searched my registry for it. While I do
have UNC connections in my registry, they all point to internal resources on
my home network, all of which respond within seconds not minutes. It also
would not explain why double clicking on a text or video file would take
minutes for the Notepad and WMP to load.

Peter

Right-click is extremely slow only when Network is enabled:
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/rcdelay.htm

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows Shell/User]
The Winhelponline Blog: http://www.winhelponline.com/blog
Windows® Troubleshooting: http://www.winhelponline.com

I've had a minor issue for a while now, but recently it has gotten to a
point of nearly making my system useless. The system is a Windows XP
Pro, SP2 with 2G of RAM running on a P4 3.4ghz HT system. Basically it
manifests itself in three areas:

* Right click on a file and the right click menu will take nearly 2
minutes to come up
* Double click on a video or text file and the system will take nearly 3
minutes to launch Windows media player or notepad (depending on the file
double clicked)
* Clicking on a file to select it and the pressing 'delete' on the
keyboard to delete it takes about 2-3 minutes before the system responds
and the file is moved to the trash (video files are the slowest by far,
but other files take up to a minute as well)

Trying to troubleshoot this problem I discovered a couple of things:

* If I disable my network card, then none of these delays occur, but
everything works as expected.
* If I manually drag and drop a file into the trash there is no delay
(with or without the NIC enabled)
* If I launch Windows Media Player and drag a vide file into it to play
there is no delay (with or without the NIC card)


While I do have a few apps hooked into my right-click menu (winzip and
textpad) it isn't all that much, but more importantly I've had the same
setup for a while now, yet the problem has only gotten this bad in the
last 3 months or so. Since the problem goes away when the network is
disconnected, its logical to assume that something is trying to connect
to a network service and taking a while to time out. So I've ran
netstat -a before and after to see what the differences are, but I can
account for nearly every item on that list, and the ones I cannot do not
show up consistently.

Anyone else seen this kind of behavior and can offer any suggestions
before I just bite the bullet and blow away the entire system? While
that would most certianly be a solution, I do not really have the time to
take a half a day or so to reinstall my entire system.

Thanks,
Peter

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

It's certainly caused by a network / UNC. Perhaps you can investigate using
Ethereal, or Process Monitor.

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows Shell/User]
The Winhelponline Blog: http://www.winhelponline.com/blog
Windows® Troubleshooting: http://www.winhelponline.com

I've already seen this article and searched my registry for it. While I
do have UNC connections in my registry, they all point to internal
resources on my home network, all of which respond within seconds not
minutes. It also would not explain why double clicking on a text or video
file would take minutes for the Notepad and WMP to load.

Peter

Right-click is extremely slow only when Network is enabled:
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/rcdelay.htm

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows Shell/User]
The Winhelponline Blog: http://www.winhelponline.com/blog
Windows® Troubleshooting: http://www.winhelponline.com

I've had a minor issue for a while now, but recently it has gotten to a
point of nearly making my system useless. The system is a Windows XP
Pro, SP2 with 2G of RAM running on a P4 3.4ghz HT system. Basically it
manifests itself in three areas:

* Right click on a file and the right click menu will take nearly 2
minutes to come up
* Double click on a video or text file and the system will take nearly 3
minutes to launch Windows media player or notepad (depending on the file
double clicked)
* Clicking on a file to select it and the pressing 'delete' on the
keyboard to delete it takes about 2-3 minutes before the system responds
and the file is moved to the trash (video files are the slowest by far,
but other files take up to a minute as well)

Trying to troubleshoot this problem I discovered a couple of things:

* If I disable my network card, then none of these delays occur, but
everything works as expected.
* If I manually drag and drop a file into the trash there is no delay
(with or without the NIC enabled)
* If I launch Windows Media Player and drag a vide file into it to play
there is no delay (with or without the NIC card)


While I do have a few apps hooked into my right-click menu (winzip and
textpad) it isn't all that much, but more importantly I've had the same
setup for a while now, yet the problem has only gotten this bad in the
last 3 months or so. Since the problem goes away when the network is
disconnected, its logical to assume that something is trying to connect
to a network service and taking a while to time out. So I've ran
netstat -a before and after to see what the differences are, but I can
account for nearly every item on that list, and the ones I cannot do not
show up consistently.

Anyone else seen this kind of behavior and can offer any suggestions
before I just bite the bullet and blow away the entire system? While
that would most certianly be a solution, I do not really have the time
to take a half a day or so to reinstall my entire system.

Thanks,
Peter