Resolved Freezing Desktop Icons

In the past month or two, when I drag a desktop shortcut into a desktop folder for tidiness sake I find that it freezes over the folder and won't go into it. The entire desktop freezes also. The only way I can unfreeze it is with Task Manager where I can stop the 'Drag' process. Similiarly, if I right-click on a desktop shortcut the timer appears and everything freezes again, only this time the Task Manager shows no process so everything remains frozen until I restart the computer. Would anyone have any solution to this irritating problem? I regularly do boot-time antivirus scans and daily malware scans too. Many thanks.

 

How many trazillion items are in said target folder?

you need at least 3 times the ram you have now. STOP using outlook express.

keep at least 20% of your boot hard drive FREE (available space)

 

I have ten folders on my desktop with an average of ten items in each of them. One has thirty-six in it. Overall I have twenty seven icons on the desktop itself.

What's the problem with using Outlook Express?

Thanks!

 

I have 44gb free space on my 149gb boot drive which is 29%. So far so good.

 

There are two profiles:

Administrator (me): 4.50mb

Tom (me): 2.26mb

 

So, if I create a new account should I delete the 'Tom' account? I'm unfamiliar with the consequences or benefits of doing either so I'm looking at this: http://www.worldstart.com/tips/tips.php/2891

If you have a link to anything better I'd appreciate it. Many thanks.

 

Ok. I've created a new account. The new account when logged into has almost nothing on the desktop. My programs list is drastically reduced also. However I've created a folder on the desktop and tried to drop a shortcut into it. The problem continues and the shortcut won't drop into it.

 

Yes, I've checked that and 'Enable Dragging and Dropping' under the 'Start Menu' items is checked.

 

Hello have you tried notching down hardware acceleration on your graphics card?

This is found in advanced graphics properties.

Try turning it down a few notches and see if that resolves the issue.

I have seen this is sometimes caused by hardware acceleration or buggy graphics drivers.

Tom

 

Could you tell me the route to accessing advanced graphics properties, please?

 

Check this link out it has a step by step with pictures:

http://www.deskshare.com/Resources/articles/dmc_turnoffhardwareacceleration.aspx

Tom

 

Thanks for that, Tom. I'll check it out.

However, this evening I changed my desktop background and found that my problem disappeared. I'll give it a few days to see if it stays that way and report back. If it has changed back to the problematic situation I'll give your suggestion a try.

 

Well, I've given it more than a few days but the problem has returned. I've installed Rambooster in the hope that a possible memory leak might be the problem but to no avail. My free ram is 51% at the moment and cpu usage is 2%.

I've only turned my computer on in the past hour, tried to drag a picture out of a folder onto my desktop but the desktop froze again. I used Task Manager to stop the drag process and unfreeze things. In my search for a solution amongst various similiar posts I don't believe I've seen a satisfactory resolution. Once in a while I can drag an icon but only occasionally.

 

I've followed Tom's (tashman847) suggestion above and, lo and behold, I was able to drag that icon out of the folder without any freezing. I reduced the hardware acceleration to 50%. Let's give it a few days to see if it has solved the problem.

Thanks, Tom (in anticipation).