Why is it when I right click on an shortcut, program, drive letter,
desktop, or for that matter anything on my computer, the right click
context menu that should pop up immediately, takes 10-15 seconds
sometimes??  And how can I alleviate this problem?  I am assuming that
some other program that has entries in the general right click menu is
causing the slow down.  Any ideas would be helpful.  Thanks in
advance!

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Request for Question Clarification by sublime1-ga on 31 Dec 2002 13:23 PST

reynolea...

I don't believe that locating the right-click context menus
in the registry will assist with your dilemma. Maybe this will:

Before you right-click on something which shows a delay, open
up Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Delete) and go to the 'processes'
tab. Expand the page vertically so that as many processes are
visible as is possible. Then right-click on something, and see
if a particular process jumps up in % of CPU usage.

Let me know if this reveals anything useful.

sublime1-ga

Ah, the perils of life with Windows. Not knowing more about your
computer, one might guess that your ram (random-access memory) is
being maxed out, either because of its size, relative to the
application's demands upon it, or because multiple applications are
running at the same time. If it is the latter, try closing down some
programs that you are not using at the moment, including screensavers.
If this doesn't help, perhaps consider buying a larger ram chip for
your computer.

Do you run McAfee VirusScan?  This program has sometimes been
associated with your problem.  If you use it, try closing the program
(or even better, don't load it at startup) and see if that helps.

Well, unfortunately it is not my RAM being maxed or too many programs
being open at once.  The performance of my machine in all other
aspects is great.

I am assuming it has something to do with a program (such as McAfee
virusscan for example) that is polling something.  I'm wondering
whether or not there might be some place in the registry where I might
be able to see the right click context menu entries?

Speaking of which, I do not run McAfee Virusscan, but I do run Norton
Corporate Edition, and I am running Win2k server, not professional.  I
am going to start temporarily shutting down certain NT services to see
if that has any effect.

Thanks for any more tips!!

To search for applications that are taking up your CPU usage, open
Task Manager (ctrl+alt+del, Task Manager), then look under processes
and sort by CPU.  Anything higher than around 20 is using the CPU
quite extensively, other than the System Idle Process.  You can also
look at the CPU time for any large values.

There are some SpyWare products, such as Gator that are known to slow
your system down.  These will not show up with a virus scanner, as
they are not classified as viruses.  However, they may share your
information without your knowledge, run searches on your computer and
take up network resources by reporting the results back to the
publisher.  For Gator, look for GatorStub, PrecisionTime or Date
Manager.  You can find removal tools for this and other SpyWare
programs by using AdAware from http://www.lavasoftusa.com.

Another item you may look at is the menu speed delay built into
Windows.  Open Regedit and navigate to the "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control
Panel\desktop" key.  There should be a value called MenuShowDelay, if
not you can add it as a String Value.  The default value is 400 -- if
you'd like it to not have a delay, set it to 0.

Thanks!

Gambo