I notice now that even when I boot up XP SP3 fresh, with just the
desktop showing, the 'hourglass' is continually blinking.
Since that indicates that something is running (or pending), how can I
discover which app is doing this?
Thanks
me
The canned answer here ("Azeez N") suggests testing in
Safe Mode. The idea being, if the hourglass goes away,
it could be something in the Startup folder.
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...ndows-xp/8efdd957-56f7-47a2-8d2e-b39d0ce6f0f0
You could also have a look at Sysinternals Autoruns. Which
is a convenient way of examining the myriad ways of starting
programs. Something could be trying to start, over and over
again. Perhaps a service has been set to retry, if it dies.
For that matter, it could be something your AV software
is doing. Since AV programs are like a virus, they can
affect just about any subsystem in the computer. They
get into *everything*.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902
While programs like Sysinternals Process Explorer or Process
Monitor can also provide feedback about programs, or
about "activities" on the computer, I don't
really know in this case, what I'm looking for.
I might try a Process Monitor trace, with filters all turned
off, collect a couple seconds of data, then scroll through
looking for anything unusual. It is normal for the OS
to be pounding the crap out of the Registry by the way,
so don't panic if you see repetitive Registry reading
in your couple second trace. That's common. When your
desktop is idle, the thing doesn't actually "quiet down".
it's always busy busy busy.
Paul