Hello,

I have Windows XP home edition and as of this morning everytime I try to open up a folder on my desktop or Internet Explorer it takes like four minutes to open. Once the folder is open, everything is ok and I can move about pretty quickly. Some of my icons on my desktop or not effected like my foxfire icon and Nero Icon, but any folder or Internet Explorer will just take forever to open. I have ran a registry check and used at least three different virus scans and everything seems to be fine, but still can not get pass this problem. Does anyone have any ideas what I can do.

Thanks.

Have you scanned for adware and spyware?

if not try these they're free:

http://www.download.com/Spybot-Search-Destroy/3000-8022_4-10289035.html?tag=lst-0-2
http://www.download.com/Ad-Aware-SE-Personal-Edition/3000-8022_4-10319876.html?tag=lst-0-1

Also you might want to think twice about using internet explorer, below is a link for firefox.

http://www.download.com/Mozilla-Firefox/3000-2356_4-10335582.html?tag=lst-0-1

Thanks for responding. I actually did use both of those adware/spyware programs. They are two of four that I have on my computer and there was not any changes. I also do have foxfire as well. It seems that any folder related item on the desktop just takes about three minutes to open. Even when I go to the start menu and pick a folder it takes forever to open, but once I am in that folder then it is back to normal.

Might seem obvious but have you tried defragmenting the drive?

In all honestly I have never done a defrag on this pc at least in the last year and a half. I will give it a shot and see.

Well oddly enough that seems to have done the trick. Thanks for the advice. Maybe I should defrag a bit more often.

Defragmenting hard drives at least once per month is recommend.

I try to do mine every couple of weeks and it still takes ages.