Win XP Network Access Slow

I recently had to re-install WinXP Pro on my Toshiba notebook (because of a hard disk failure). Everything on my PC is the same as before.

Previously when I connected to my home LAN, the notebook would find my network in a matter of seconds - but now it takes 10 minutes or so before the network can be seen in Explorer.

FYI - Internet access is available immediately after I connect to the LAN but for some reason the network LAN connections can not be seen for a long time.

Is there some config settings that I need to tweak?

Why does it now take so long to see the network and what has changed from before?

 

Not knowing what the OS on the Lan are here are some tweaks to speed up XP. Copied out of my notes.
When you connect to another computer with Windows XP, it checks for any Scheduled tasks on that computer - a fairly useless task, but one that can add up to 30 seconds of waiting on the other end - not good! Fortunately, it’s fairly easy to disable this process.

First, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Explorer/RemoteComputer/NameSpace
in the Registry. Below that, there should be a key called {D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF}. Just delete this, and after a restart, Windows will no longer check for scheduled tasks - major performance improvement!

Disable the Automatic Search for Network Printers and Folders
To disable the automatic search for network printers and folders:
Click Start, click Control Panel, click Appearance and Themes, and click Folder Options to open the Folder Options dialog box.
Click the View tab.
In the Advanced Settings list, click to clear the Automatically Search for Network Folders and Printers check box.
Click OK.
I haven't needed to do any of this but all my machines are XP Pro. They have a little hourglass for about a second then everything shows up. I'm running through a wireless router.

 

OK, thanks Maggie - I'll give these a whirl and let you know.

Noticed that in the registry there is also an entry for
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\RemoteComputer\NameSpace\{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}
I assume that I should leave that intact.

FYI, my home LAN actually networks a couple of Win98 PCs. I know this is a bit of aging technology but considering the connection previously worked very responsively I assume that the Win98 isn't the problem. The LAN is set up using a wired Linksys router.

Last night I mapped a drive to one of my home PCs so I'll check tonight to see that also helps to speed up the connection.

 

The ones I gave you are the only ones I know about. Someone else should comment on the one you found.

Yes I guess XP has a problem networking with the 9X OS. 98 seems to find the network immediately! Good luck!

 

Take a look Here and especially at post #13. Couple of ideas there that may help although most have already been mentioned here.

 

XP PRo slow to recognize network drives

Pretty much the same problem here: I have one station running WindowsXPpro; the others run Windows2000pro. The server runs Win2000server. The server has several shared folders which are mapped as network drives, identically, on all the workstations. The Win2Kpro stations can get to the network drives very fast. They can also see each others' shared folders very fast. But the XPpro machine stalls for about 10 seconds each time it tries to access ANY network drive. Once it recognizes the drive/folder, it works fine, no errors. But each time it goes to connect, it is like it needs to be re-introduced! What a pain for that one user! --
By the way, I took Maggie's suggestion for post#2 above- it did not help.
On the NIC card, I tried setting it manually to 100mbps Full Duplex, but it runs at half duplex when I do that. So I put it back to Autosense, and it runs at 100 Full Duplex again. That was not the problem.
--Any other ideas? Thanx.