Resolved "My Computer" desktop shortcut broken !

Last night something went wrong with my "My Computer" icon. When I ciick on it it now takes over 2 minutes to open up with the list of my drives, etc. !! Once open, browsing files and folders is unaffected, except if I navigate upwards to 'My Computer' it does it again.

I've tried deleting and replacing the desktop icon with no luck. I've Googled and found nothing that helps. For the time being, when I eventually got it open, I've dragged shortcuts onto my desktop for drive C, D, and other things I need. These work.

I've tried the usual virus scans, defragging, temporarily switching off my Kaspersky, etc. and nothing helps. Has anyone any suggestions as to how to correct this strange and extremely annoying problem?

Thanks
John

 

Hi Steve, and thanks!
No, it's a standalone home PC ,with no mapped drives. XP Pro SP3.
Control Panel/User Accounts I've just noticed also takes about two minutes to load, whilst other Control Panel items are ok. I did add another user last night with Admin privileges as I attempted to cure things. (Somewhere on the internet I found a suggestion to rename or move the folder C:docs and settings\<user profile name>\settings\application data\microsoft\windows but doing so from another user with Admin rights. It didn't help). Actually I've just deleted that second Admin user and that hasn't helped either, although maybe I need to reboot.

 

Thanks Tony.
(1) Delete all files and folders in C:\Windows\Temp:
One file remains as it won't let me delete or rename it, saying it's being used by another program : Perflib_Perfdata_968.dat. Googling and finding a link to Microsoft it looks like this is a normal file although they can sometimes become 'orphaned'. Could that be part of the problem I've got?

(2) Delete all files and folders in C:\Documents and Settings\User\Local Settings\Temp.
Done but seven remain which won't delete - they look like they were created ten minutes ago, so probably ok?

(3) Delete Prefetch:
I deleted all the files in it and left the empty folder.

(4) Delete files in C:\Documents & Settings\your-username\Local Settings\Recent: I haven't got such a folder.

(5) Delete all Temp Internet Files, Cookies, etc: done (except entries relating to this site)

(6) Empty Recycle bin:
Some strange new behaviour is happening here. I emptied it but although it shows empty when I open it, there is a bit of paper on the icon which is the indicator for something in there. That's odd and something that's not happened before. Now when I right click on it to empty I get a popup: "Are you sure you want to delete 'WINDOWS' " That seems very weird!? If I say yes, an error popup appears saying "Cannot delete Dc85: Access is denied. Make sure the disk is not full or write-protected and that the file is not currently in use." Right clicking offers to open it with Paint Shop Pro and what then appears after Paint Shop Pro opens is an image named "Browse F:" and the picture is one of my desktop and its tree. This really does seem odd indeed. I've not had this before and my recycle bin always fully deleted. Something is now stuck in there??

7./8. In My Computer > rt click c: > select Properties > uncheck Allow Indexing Service to index... > same for subfolders & files when prompted.
‘Allow Indexing’ box was already unticked. So to be sure I ticked it, letting all the attributes go to all folders, then I unticked it as per your instruction above, letting the attributes go to all folders.

9. In My Computer > rt click c: > select Properties > Tools > Error checking > check now > follow prompts. Started but it says I need to schedule it and shut down as it needs to access Windows files. Just going to post this first.

Many thanks for the help so far Tony! I really appreciate it.
John

 

Steve, where is HKLM\System etc?
Icons are fine and work fast as before. Access to disks and folders is all ok. It is only this one thing: "My Computer" for some reason is constipated.

Thanks for your help Steve.
John

 

It's in the registry. Back up registry first. Start\Run(type in "regedit" without quotation marks) Click on OK. Once in the registry navigate the path that Steve gave you.

 

Steve, Tony, none of those procedures have done the trick unfortunately. The error scan came back with no issues.

I'm pretty sure now it was something to do with the fact I had a 4GB memory stick attached and the slowness might have been simply 'My Computer' reading/cataloguing it or something like that. Anyway, I tried disconnecting every single USB device, except for my mouse and keyboard, re-booted and still the 2 minute 'flashlight' before 'My Computer' shows. As I said, all icons work fine and shortuts to drives dragged from 'My Computer' (once it appears) work as fast as normal.

My theory: somewhere, Windows has remembered that I once had that 4GB stick connected and it's trying to find it, catalogue it or whatever. (I confess I took it out this morning whilst trying to find a solution to my problem and I didn't disconnect it properly by clicking the 'safe removal' icon...) So, is there a file or setting in Windows somewhere that I can manually change to make it forget that memory stick was ever connected?


John

PS: Doomsday scenario:
1. I have an Acronis backup a month old.
2. Backup my registry
3. Fire up Acronis and restore just the C:\Windows folder (and subs)
4. Exit Acronis
5. Restore backed up Registry
6. Reboot.

Would this work? i.e. just restoring the C:\Windows directory?

Thanks
John

 

Tony, I did a full scan today using Malwarebytes Antimalware and it found nothing, neither did my Kapsersky. Any recommendations for a cleaner that will actually find this Trojan?

John

 

In the end, after wasting too much time on it, I zapped the whole os drive and reinstalled everything. It was definitely a hitch with indexing but I'll never know what, I guess.