window hang--for no apparent reason

[terry b]

[setup:
Win2K Pro SP4
512MB RAM
763 MB page file]

Has anyone had this problem: A normal explorer window on your Win2K
system will hang over a very minor "cause"--like you're just clicking
on a window's title bar to move the window, or you're clicking on the
minimize|restore button in the upper rt corner of window? I mean, what
I've got happening is that once or twice an evening, the window(s)
visible on the monitor will hang up bigtime when I'm doing something
trivial like the above, & the only way to get things right is to bring
up Task Mgr and stop the task associated w/ the frozen window(s). A
couple of times when it's happened, I've had the presence of mind
afterword to go into Event Mgr and look for "X's", but there's never
any sign in the Application or System log that points to anything
specific going wrong. Another thing: Invariably when the hangup
happens, there's plenty of RAM available on the machine.
Does any of this ring a bell with you Win2K experts out there? I'd
appreciate very much hearing any credible theories.
Thanks for your time & attention to detail!

terry b.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

[setup:
Win2K Pro SP4
512MB RAM
763 MB page file]

Has anyone had this problem: A normal explorer window on your Win2K
system will hang over a very minor "cause"--like you're just clicking
on a window's title bar to move the window, or you're clicking on the
minimize|restore button in the upper rt corner of window? I mean, what
I've got happening is that once or twice an evening, the window(s)
visible on the monitor will hang up bigtime when I'm doing something
trivial like the above, & the only way to get things right is to bring
up Task Mgr and stop the task associated w/ the frozen window(s). A
couple of times when it's happened, I've had the presence of mind
afterword to go into Event Mgr and look for "X's", but there's never
any sign in the Application or System log that points to anything
specific going wrong. Another thing: Invariably when the hangup
happens, there's plenty of RAM available on the machine.
Does any of this ring a bell with you Win2K experts out there? I'd
appreciate very much hearing any credible theories.
Thanks for your time & attention to detail!

terry b.

I suspect that it's not Windows that hangs - it's some of your
applications. If Windows itself was hanging then you would not
be able to kill any tasks.

The reasons for your tasks hanging may not be apparant but
it's a fair guess that something is running on your machine that
should not be running. I would do this:
- Examine the Event Viewer logs.
- Download & run AdAware (http://lavasoft.element5.com/software/adaware/).
- Run a complete virus scan via www.antivirus.com ("free online scan").
- Use msconfig.exe (http://www.svrops.com/svrops/dwnldoth.htm) to examine
all your startup tasks, and to disable those that look suspicious.

If you don't have a firewall, install one right now! (www.zonelabs.com).