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Long pause when starting Win Explorer

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This is driving me crazier…
I use WinDOZE explorer a lot! this started about 3 or 4 weeks ago, I was gone for a couple of days and when I get back this behavior starts:
-Go into windows explorer and there is a pause of anywhere from 30 sec. to a full minute,
-Expand any local or mapped drive you get the pause,
-Expand any multi-level folder you get the pause

I have noticed it doesn’t happen when I go into “My Documents” and expand multi-level folders there or when I go down into “My network Places” and expand any computer and/or folders there.

CPU usage will go from 2%-3% up to 80% to 100% but network activity stays at a minimum.
This computer is only about 4 months old with XP pro SP3. I’ve done virus/malware scans with various products and except for a few tracking cookies always come up clean.
Around the time it started I noticed the HP updater downloaded some updates for my printer (the computer is also HP) and also I installed a new Tripp-lite USB hub (have since un-installed it).
Anyone have ideas on what else I can look at or do to troubleshoot this???

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Clarifications

In reply to Long pause when starting Win Explorer

Clarifications

Did you recently get IE8 installed

In reply to Long pause when starting Win Explorer

Cause I had the exact same problems as you, caused by IE8, I deleted it, and the problems went away.

Yes I did…

In reply to Did you recently get IE8 installed

Forgot about that one…
Sometimes it pauses for a “longer than it should” time then the page all of a sudden pops up.

I’ll give that a try.

That brings up another question though, will your previous version of IE be there when you uninstall it?

It was for me

In reply to Yes I did…

But I just Installed it (not thru Windows update), hated it, then uninstalled it. I got back IE7.

You’re my hero for today!!!

In reply to It was for me

Uninstalled it and am back to IE 6.X
That took care of the pause except for when I collapse a directory branch, get a maybe 10 to 15 sec. pause as the screen refreshes.

Noticed my computer also boots up faster now too, didn’t even realize that the boot time had also been longer!
Thanks!

Yes no problem, IE7 is still downloadable

In reply to You’re my hero for today!!!

If you hunt it down…

have you tried

In reply to Long pause when starting Win Explorer

removing all of the peripherals from the computer? what process(es) are burying the CPU?

I’ve shut down

In reply to have you tried

pretty much every extraneous process and CPU utilization still jumps up to 80+ percent.
I’ve gone into all my startup points and disabled so much as to nearly have a fresh install like state (I know there is more like drivers, etc.. that it could be tied to).

I’m suspecting the IE8 thing as previously mentioned and if I get time this afternoon I may try that.

I haven’t tried uninstalling my printer yet, but if the IE8 thing doesn’t do it that may be my next step.
Thanks

Do you have any

In reply to Long pause when starting Win Explorer

Mapped drives that are no longer valid?
This can cause a serious delay for Explorer or when doing a Saveas.

Did when I first noticed the problem

In reply to Do you have any

But I disconnected thinking that would clear it up. Unfortunately it didn’t help.
It was my previous computer, I had mapped to a couple of partitions there so I could copy a lot of data (my MP3 collection mostly 😉 ) over to this computer, and at the time the problem started I wasn’t booting it up every day (am now for other reasons).
Thanks

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