system hangs when saving a .jpg file from OE or Paint

[B J W]

I get an application hang whenever I try to save a .jpg file from an e-mail
in Outlook Express. And, I noticed yesterday, that I also get an
application hang, when I try to save a .jpg in Microsoft Paint.

When I bring up Task Manager, I see that OE is churning like mad thru the
CPU cycles, taking ~50% on a 2.8 Ghz P4. And, if I wait a very long time
(10+ minutes) -- sometimes, but not always -- the problem will apparently
resolve itself, and I will gain the ability to save .jpg attachments as
files. But, I lose it, as soon as I close OE.

I do not have any hint of this problem in Mozilla Thunderbird or Microsoft
Outlook.

Spybot S&D shows a clean system, and Norton AV is functioning normally.

I wonder (given the similar problem in Paint), if there is some corruption
in the Windows .jpg plumbing, which might be resolved somehow.

I tried running sfc from a command prompt, but that did not seem to do
anything. I don't know how or why you would do
sfc /purgecache
and wondered if that was necessary in this case.

This is one of those problems, which was not immediately apparent, when it
started. Anyway, I don't think System Restore is an option.

Any other ideas.

 

[Plato]

I get an application hang whenever I try to save a .jpg file from an e-mail
in Outlook Express. And, I noticed yesterday, that I also get an

When was the last time you cleaned out your internet cache files and all
your temp files?