Starting Windows Explorer causes my laptop to slow to a crawl

[Guest]

I have two Dell laptops, both running Windows Media Center 2005. A few weeks
ago my Inspiron 6000 started to respond extremely slowly when starting
Explorer to copy files. (It takes 6-8 minutes for it to even appear on
screen). In the meantime, everything else is "frozen" as well. I end up
having to power down and restart to do anything. If I don't use Explorer, the
PC runs fine: this includes internet access, MS Office programs, graphics
programs, utility scans, etc. It's just Explorer that's the problem. If I use
"My Computer" I am able to do what I need to do, so that's been my
work-around lately and it appears to function okay. The other day I started
up Explorer (w/o thinking) and it popped up and ran fine. Thinking it was
okay now, I started it a second time to check it out and this time it ran
slowly as previously mentioned. After 15 minutes I powered down.
The older Dell Latitude started doing the same thing about the same time as
the Inspiron. The laptops are an older Latitude P3 650 MHz (512MB RAM, 20GB
HD) and the other is a newer Inspiron Centrino 1.6 GHz (512MB RAM, 40GB HD).
All MS updates, including the batch on 10/10/06, have been installed w/o a
problem.
I'm running Panda Titanium Antivirus, CounterSpy, and Spyware Doctor (latest
updates installed) on both machines and none found any viruses or spyware on
either laptop when the full system was scanned. I tried XP Repair Pro 2006
and RegCure but neither helped solve the problem.
I'm not having any problems on my Dell desktop, but it's running Win XP Pro
SP-2, also with all updates. Don't know if that's any different behind the
scenes.
I'm stumped as to the cause, and thus the fix. Any thoughts or ideas on a
fix are greatly appreciated.

 

[Ronnie Vernon MVP]

This is extremely strange. Windows Explorer and My Computer are both run from the same process although their behavior is slightly different (Explorer.exe).

And for both laptops to exhibit the same behavior is also extremely strange.

Did you install or connect any programs/drivers/hardware/peripherals/extenders or ? on both systems during the period just before this started happening?

 

[Guest]

Ronnie:
Nothing has been added/installed prior to this problem, other than the usual
program updates (MS Win Updates, CounterSpy & Panda definitions, etc.) I
installed XP Repair Pro after the problem started hoping to find some
registry glitch but not successful there.
Obviously I'm stumped as well. I did some web searches and found info on the
programs & processes that auto-load at startup so I'm going to review those
today to see if something is chewing up resources. I looked through Task
Manager before and there wasn't anything obvious as to resource percentages
used.

 

[Ronnie Vernon MVP]

Luther

Print this message.

You may have some software programs that are conflicting and causing problems. I have never recommended using programs that promise to "fix" any problems that might occur on Windows. It's been my experience that these programs can cause more problems than they fix.

Here is a strategy you can use to troubleshoot this problem. The first thing you want to do is get the system in a "clean" environment. Use the "Manual steps to perform a clean boot in Windows XP" contained in the following article.

How to perform a clean boot in Windows XP:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310353

Once you start the system in the clean environment, try to recreate the problem with Windows Explorer. If this solves the problem, then you likely have a program in the start up list that is causing a conflict. Use the steps in the following article to track down this program.

How to Troubleshoot By Using the Msconfig Utility in Windows XP:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310560

If this does not resolve the problem, perform the following.

Check the Event Viewer for possible information. Go to start/Run and type eventvwr and press OK. Click the Application menu item on the left and look for any "X" error messages that coincide with when you last saw this behavior. If any are found, double click the error entry to see the details, click the Copy Icon on the right side of the details dialog screen (looks like 2 pages of text) and paste the error details in a reply to this message. You only need to post the text starting with Event Type: and ending with the Description:. You can omit the Data section.

ie:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: <source>
Event Category: <category>
Event ID: <ID #>
Date: <date>
Time: <time>
User: <user name>
Computer: <computer name>
Description:
Hanging application <program>, <version>, <address>

----

Next:
Go to Start/Run and type msinfo32 and press OK. Click Components/Problem Devices to check for possible hardware device problems. If anything is visible in this window, copy the information and post it in a reply. (Press CTRL+A to select all, then CTRL+C to copy, paste the results in a reply here.

 

[Guest]

Ronnie:
Thanks for the ideas...
After running steps from "Clean Boot" and adding sections in one at a time I
found the problem was in the "Load System Services" section. Then by the same
one-at-a-time process I narrowed the culprit down to TPSrv.exe, the
TruPrevent part of Panda Titanium 2006 Antivirus. I could run w/o it:
however, by leaving it "unchecked" my AV protection level was much lower than
normal.
Figuring I had little to lose I uninstalled Titanium, rebooted, and then ran
a completely new install into a directory with a different name from the
original. Voila! My laptop's back to performance it hasn't had in months.
Even the updates are quicker.
Not sure if there's a connection but there was an Intel wireless device
manager running that was doing nothing. I updated it a few months back, and
it auto-installed itself in the Task Tray. After I stopped it from loading I
was able to start/stop Explorer several times w/o a freeze. (Don't know if
some how that update and the WiFi Detection in Titanium were conflicting and
corrupted the file TPSrv.exe: don't really care now, either) Now with the new
install I ran Explorer 20 times to confirm, and all is well.
My deepest thanks for the suggestions and help. Yes it took some time but
was financially painless.
Regards

 

[Ronnie Vernon MVP]

Great!

Glad you got this sorted and kudos for a good job tracking that down.

 

[Pam]

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Application Error
Event Category: (100)
Event ID: 1000
Date: 7/5/2008
Time: 11:52:32 PM
User: N/A
Computer: FAMILYROOM
Description:
Faulting application explorer.exe, version 6.0.2900.3156, faulting module
unknown, version 0.0.0.0, fault address 0x1000b1db.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 41 70 70 6c 69 63 61 74 Applicat
0008: 69 6f 6e 20 46 61 69 6c ion Fail
0010: 75 72 65 20 20 65 78 70 ure exp
0018: 6c 6f 72 65 72 2e 65 78 lorer.ex
0020: 65 20 36 2e 30 2e 32 39 e 6.0.29
0028: 30 30 2e 33 31 35 36 20 00.3156
0030: 69 6e 20 75 6e 6b 6e 6f in unkno
0038: 77 6e 20 30 2e 30 2e 30 wn 0.0.0
0040: 2e 30 20 61 74 20 6f 66 .0 at of
0048: 66 73 65 74 20 31 30 30 fset 100
0050: 30 62 31 64 62 0b1db