Large pause before some jobs start

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I have a strange problem on my PC. When I try to rename a file, view a video, play an mp3 file, view a pdf or click on a .rar file there is a 20 to 25 second pause before anything happens. This occurs when I try to access the file via Explore or if it’s on the desktop.

When I click on .exe files they execute straight away. If I click on a .avi file there is a pause yet if I click on VLC media player and then select the .avi file it plays straight away.

I’ve done a scan with Avast and it found no problems. If no one has seen this before I will do a nondestructive repair of XP.

Running XP Home SP3

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Is your system maintenance up to date (Temporary Internet Files deleted, hard drive defragged) ?? How full is your hard drive ?? Sometimes a cluttered or full system won’t allow the page or swap file to do it’s job because it needs more disk space to swap out the work.

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All temporary files have been deleted and there is 100GB free on a 200GB drive. I haven’t defragged.

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How many apps are starting with Windows? Use msconfig.exe to check this (Run or search msconfig) If you have more than 3 or 4 you probably have items that do not need to be running in the background.

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4 jobs in the Startup list

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Any recent updates to any software ?? Flash, Java, Windows ?? A System Restore might unwind anything that borked a system file.

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I did a restore prior to an install of iTunes and that improved it slightly. It changed the pause to about 5 or 6 seconds. I lost a lot of video and subtitle files so i had to back out the restore to get the files back. That got the pause back to about 25 seconds again.
This morning I did a reboot (PC runs 24/7) and now everything is working perfectly (I had tried reboots previously) so go figure. No updates or installs since the last restore. I’m stuffed if I know what’s going on here, very frustrating.

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Interesting that you lost video and subtitles with a system restore. It should not have altered them. Are you using “re-image” and “system restore” interchangebly? Even though I am not a supporter of this, trying cleaning your registry with the free CClearner (http://www.piriform.com/) or a regisrty defragger as a last ditch measure if it raises its ugly head again. Backup your registry first.

HTH
Maud

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The files I lost were on a second drive and I only used system restore. Now that you mention CCleaner, I did use it a day or 2 ago and I don’t think I rebooted after it. Maybe that did the trick, we will wait and see. Thanks Maud.

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