Windows XP slow on browsing shared files/folders

well my problem really is like this:

i have 3 computers in our house and 2 of them use winme while i use winxp pro.

whenever i try to browse computers, it takes about a minute to open the my network places (and browse computers). after waiting for one minute, i want to copy files on other computers, every time i open a folder, it gets slower and slower. when i reached the file i want to copy i select the file and right click it to show the menu, but the menu shows up after 2mins!! after seeing the menu, i press copy, it takes again another minute before the hourglass return to cursor..

i think this is a problem with win9x+win2k/xp networking problem..

btw, both of the computer can browse my computer fast...

i hope someone can help me...

try this:

Open up the Registry and go to :

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Explorer/RemoteComputer/NameSpace

Under that branch, select the key :

{D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF}

and delete it.

tried it myself and it works

! I heard it doesn't always work on 9x machines, haven't heard any probs with 2k/xp machines yet

tried that, still no go..

maybe ill switch to win2k...

athlonfan,

dont' go back just yet... i have the same problem. however, it only came about a couple of days ago. I didn't change the registry setting to get it work either.
All i can think of is, do you have any viruses on your computer? Check for the nimda virus. Hmmm... I also recently installed the directX 8 SDK. I also recently UNINSTALLED Tweak-XP and I think that has something to do with it.
Do you have any of these things running?

riz

winzip 8.1 beta is the problem... ive installed it and my slow menu in network folders/files shows up but when i uninstalled it, it worked like a charm...

fatattack's tweak does speed it up slightly. It stops the checking for 'scheduled tasks' on other computers (what the hell is that for anyway?) you can also stop it checking for printers if you don't need that feature.

BUT yes, both Win2K AND WinXP are definately slower at browsing that win9x. Anyone know why?

additionally, XP is the slowest but I read on a microsoft news site that this is a bug and will be adressed in SP1

NT based OSs tend to be slower on peer-to-peer and mixed (9x and NT) networks without the aid of WINS/DDNS or a LMHOST system. They look for and validate more functions that the other systems might have. I have only noticed this once, when I first used a single NT 4 workstation on a 95/Novell 3.x network, and the NT box would never pull up any other machine properly in Network Neighborhood. However, since I have used WINS and WINS/DNS combos, this situation has never come up again with NT/2K/XP networks. If you have a server on the network, it should be acting as the master browser and the workstations should report to it for listings and registration. If you have a strictly peer-to-peer network with many of the same machine, then they *could* be fighting over master browser rights and forcing elections over and over again. What is the structure of your network, insaNity?

Here's something else to checl out.

Thanks to RhinoTrip & Deadcat who both found solutions: This one works; I just proved it.
On the pc running XP, log in as you normally would, go to users, manage network passwords.
Here is where the problem lies. In this dialog box
remove any win98 passwords or computer-assigned names for the win98 PCs. In my case , I had two
computer-assigned win98 pc names in this box
(example G4k8e6). I deleted these names (you may have passwords instead as Deadcat had). Then go to My Network Places and voila', no more delay!!
Now, after I did this and went to My Network Places to browse the first win98 pc, I was presented with a password/logon box that looked like this: logon: G4k8e6/guest (lightly greyed out) and a place to enter a password. I entered the password that I had previously used to share drives on the win98 pcs long before I installed XP. I have the guest account enabled in XP.
This solves the problem for win98 & XP machines on a lan; I can't guarantee it will work for win2k/ME
machines as well, but the whole secret lies in the
passwords.
If this doesn't solve your slow winxp>win98
access problems, then you probably have other things wrong. Don't forget to check all the posts in this NGP to include unchecking use "simple file sharing", turning off your ICS firewall, enabling Netbios over TCP/IP and installing proper protocols, services & permissions. You do all this and I guarantee it'll work. We have spent 3-1/2 weeks on this issue, so believe me, we have tried
everything.
ps- I claim no credit; thank Deadcat & the others

hey,

not that this helps, but Here is what I've found out.

I have a home network with 3 computers, 2 running XP and the last with winME. One of the XP computers is a laptop, so I often am taking it out of the network to carry it around.

When the windows XP laptop is plugged in (and logged on), My XP box can open my network places in no time. But if that laptop is not on there (so that the only other computer on the network besides my XP box is the ME box), then opening my network places takes forever.

so:
2 (or maybe more) XP computers on network (among others): FAST network places
Only one XP box: SLOOOW network places

heh

Don't know if you can infer something from that,but that's my 2 cents

rizwan

I messed around with the NIC settings and Under WINS I unticked the 'Enable LMHOSTS lookup and it sped up the peer-to-peer browsing here.

Deadcat & the others....
Thank you for having a fix to this problem. It took me an entire day of of research, trial and error. I also thank the infinite genius of google.
If you do have slow network problems with Win98 to XP this is the fix! I have 8 computers set up on a switched LAN, 7 running win98 1 running XP. At first, accessing folders over the network FROM the XP machine was beyond pathetic. However, going FROM win98 to XP was lightning.

Having deleted the PC Names under "Manage Network Passwords", it's a beuty.

THANK YOU!!!!!!

ok your very first problem is using Windows ME...... this verison of windows was not built to use on a network but more for multimedia and games. i mean yes of course you can network it up together but its not that good. that is why you are having this problem. or your networking hub is not 10/100 its probably 10mbps which is really really really slow. so you might wanna look into that. ok so you have a windows xp machine that is good. but i would not try to network it with windows ME if i were you i would reformat the windows ME machines and installed either windows xp or windows 2000.....i would not suggest upgrading from windwos me cause you will deffently run into problems later on and you will finally end up reformating your system. trust me i have been through hell and beyond that with windows ME.......let me know if this information helps or if you are still having problems have a nice day

This forum is great and Google is the best!! I just got a new Dell with XP and upgraded my old Win98 machine to Win2k. I also have two Win2k machines on the other end of a VPN. Browsing any other machine FROM XP was rediculous. I tried most of the suggestions above, but found the following hint on (gasp) another forum, and it worked for me. Just wanted to pass it allong. I'll C&P the text as well as the link (found this on Google.).

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Slow network browsing in Windows XP

There’s a common problem in Windows XP that can make network browsing very slow.

If the 'My Network Places' folder contains a shortcut to a network share, then each refresh of the explorer window will attempt to read icon information from every file in the remote location, causing the system to slow to a crawl.

Removing all shortcuts from 'My Network Places' will return the system response to normal.

Every time you open a file via a UNC name, Windows XP will automatically add another shortcut to the 'My Network Places' folder - so the issue tends to get worse over time.

You can prevent the automatic addition of shortcuts by setting HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\NoRecentDocsNetHood to 1.

Similar issues affect the Start menu and Desktop - placing a shortcut to a network resource in either location can drastically slow down system response, particularly when the network resource is unavailable. Shortcuts to Domains or Machines don't suffer from these problems as they always have the same icon.

There are methods of accessing the network that will avoid this performance problem:

Method 1
Create a drive map and use this to browse the network files.

Method 2
Create a shortcut to explorer.exe and pass the UNC name of the resource.
e.g.
explorer /e, \\Server\FileShare

Shortcuts made using the above syntax can be placed on the start menu or desktop, but unfortunately not inside 'My Network Places' of course you can just create a folder called something like 'Simon's Network places' and fill it with links in the above format.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

There's even more info on this site at the following link:

http://www.ss64.com/nt/slow_browsing.html

Cheers!
http://www.ntcompatible.com/images/icons/icon_cool.png
http://www.ntcompatible.com/images/icons/icon_cool.png

Originally posted by matrix3000k:


EH winME is Win98SE with new directX and ie5.1 sp1 if i remember correctly.

The problem lies with trying to get Win98,98SE or Me to join a workgroup/domain with a W2k/XP master browser.

~IT is well documented and has many items that can cause it. One can be the XP machine always checking for shared printers AND scheduled tasks.

I had a similar problem with two computers running XP. It turned out it was my HP All-in-one Printer that was causing the problem. It also has a network drive (for Flash media). I disconnected this network drive from both computers (My Computer > Tools > Disconnect Network Drive) and now I can browse my other network drives with no problem.

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Suzanne Gross
aspirewebstudio.com