Odd windows problem

[Lowe]

I'm running Win2k Pro, fully updated...

Recently the machine started to get very sluggish. Did all my usual checks to see what's up and noticed that Explorer.exe is constantly hogging at least 80-90% of my CPU time. It never lets up, and really bogs the machine down.

So far the only way I've found of being able to sort it is a short term one - kill the process and use Internet Explorer as my shell! Not ideal since I lose all my icons, desktop etc.

I've scanned for viruses and nothing's being picked up. I've not got a clue on this one - anyone else come across this or got any ideas? If possible I'd rather repair than reinstall from scratch.

Cheers peeps.

[Steve]

Well you could reinstall windows, or try an alternative shell ergo www.astonshell.com

I like it, but it takes a bit of tweaking to get how you want it so it depends on what you want.

It replaces explorer as the shell, only using explorer when you've got file/folder windows open.

[Lowe]

I'd rather repair the current one I've got bud. Even so adopting a new shell isn't going to help if it still relies on a knackered Explorer once I open a window is it?

[Paul Adams]

Sounds like an odd question, but is there a CD/DVD in the drive?

I've had a similar problem on previous versions of Windows when I've had a disc that the drive was having serious problem reading inserted.

Did the problem appear after you installed some new software or hardware at all?

[mike_w]

Sounds like an odd question, but is there a CD/DVD in the drive?

I've had a similar problem on previous versions of Windows when I've had a disc that the drive was having serious problem reading inserted.

I used to have that problem quite regularly on 98SE, but since changing to 2000 I haven't had any problems like that.

If you stick the Windows 2000 Pro disc in and boot from it as though you were installing the OS, there should be a repair option in there.

[Lowe]

Right.. no CD's etc in the drives.

The problem doesn't occur if I log in as an Admin or any other profile. I've done some reading and it appears to be a problem with corrupted video files. Problem is, I've gone through all the repairing steps and it still occurs with my main profile.

Guess I best start the long process of backing everything up and preparing for a reinstall!

[Merlin]

Can you create a new profile and set it as default?

[Lowe]

Yeah, I could do though to be honest once a Windows install starts to develop errors it's not going to be the same is it.

Better to bite the bullet I think and reinstall..

[Paul Adams]

Yeah, I could do though to be honest once a Windows install starts to develop errors it's not going to be the same is it.

Better to bite the bullet I think and reinstall..

If it's specifically profile-related then there's no reason for it not to be.

Reinstalling Windows is often a "peace of mind" thing rather than actually doing anything miraculous to the system - I would guess the reason Windows slows down over time is mainly due to fragmentation, indexing catalogue size, sheer number of temporary files and size of the registry, etc.

If I were more organised then I'd use something like RegMon and FileMon before installing anything on my system, then on removal ensure it deletes everything it put in - soooo many apps/games don't clean up on uninstall, it's depressing.

If you've identified the culprit to be your local user profile then log in as admin, rename your user profile and log back in as yourself, see if there's a marked improvement.