Odd Windows Explorer Freezing / Slowdown Issue

I’m an experienced windows user, but this problem has me stymied:

Windows XP Pro (SP2, though it’s been happening with previous versions too), older PII processor, 384 MB RAM, sufficient HD space, etc.

When I double click on a file, right click on a file, highlight a file and press delete, or copy, etc in Windows Explorer, explorer goes off into it’s own world for 30-60 seconds during which time it doesn’t do anything (not hitting the hard drive, opening up the context menu, or opening the file, etc.) The computer isn’t frozen (I can alt-tab to other applications and they work at normal speed), but the particular explorer window comes up as “not responding”. After 30-60 seconds or so the command that I had given (open, context menu, etc) executes with no problems. This doesn’t seem to be a resource issue, as it happens both under heavy CPU/memory load and no load, and other applications seem unaffected by the hiccup.

Here is the odd part: When I do the same functions listed above via dragging and dropping (e.g., drag and drop in recycle bin, or into a new folder or into an application), there is no slowdown or delay. So, my question is, what the heck is explorer trying to do when I double click or right click, etc, that it’s not trying to do when I drag and drop. Presumably it’s this process that is mucking things up, but I have no idea what the issue is. I have tried to reinstall XP and the problem sticks around. However, I’m not willing to conclude is purely a hardware problem because drag and drop works fine.

Anyone have any insights? As I said before, I’m stymied.

 

Was your OS reinstall a clean one after slicking the drive?

Do you have Indexing turned on? I don't even leave that thing running on a fast hardware machine.

I tend to agree with your thought of it not being a hardware issue. PII isn't the fastest processor in the world but with enough memory (as you have) it certainly should not be anything like that slow.