Images causing PC to freeze and run real slow

[joefoto]

I have a failry robust PC p4 HT with 1G of ram and a 128 video card. When I open any folder with jpg images in it the computer spend an unusual (up to 45 secs) amount of time waiting to refresh the folder. This happens if the folder settings are set to display Thumbnails OR details. I was told to try and change some settings like not having photoshop as my default program for images, this did not make a difference. I have a P4 laptop at work that runs the same OS and manges the display of images and refreshing the folders MUCH faster. I cant figure out why thsi PC runs so slow. I work frequently witjh pictures from a digital camera and this is getting real frustrating.

Any Ideas?

[djohn]

Hello joefoto and welcome to the forum. :)

Sorry to hear your machine is running slow. This can be caused by many things, drive needs defragging, old files and ext. need cleaning off, even your hard drive being too full and not much room left for XP to do its work, low on memory, or looking at the worst possible answer, a virus on your machine.

Have you run the usual checks for memory, defrag, virus etc? If so, or your not sure how to go about it then post back to this topic and one of our members will soon have you running at top speed again.

[joefoto]

Hello joefoto and welcome to the forum. :)

Sorry to hear your machine is running slow. This can be caused by many things, drive needs defragging, old files and ext. need cleaning off, even your hard drive being too full and not much room left for XP to do its work, low on memory, or looking at the worst possible answer, a virus on your machine.

Have you run the usual checks for memory, defrag, virus etc? If so, or your not sure how to go about it then post back to this topic and one of our members will soon have you running at top speed again.

did the defrag and my Virus is up to date, scheduled scans once a week. It's strange. It seems like it just chokes whenever I open a folder with images.

[-pops-]

I have heard that there is some malware that disguises itself with a .jpg file extension.

I'm not sure of the details of this but it may be in order to run some anti-malware scans.

Try a scan with a squared click here or SuperAntiSpyware click here

If that doesn't work, come back and we can try further options.

[joefoto]

no luck

loaded both and ran them. They found some stuff and took care of it. Still the same issue, in fact another problem has surfaced. When I click on internet explorer it take 10 seconds to launch. once launched its fine and runs ok, just take a while to launch. Same with My documents and my computer.

[-pops-]

OK. Might be advisable now to run a HiJackThis scan and post it in the appropriate section of the forum.

Follow the instructions: http://forums.windowsforum.org/index.php?showtopic=6901

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

I have observed the same phenomenon on one computer, but I have never investigated what could be the source of the problem.

I am away from this computer now, but I could imagine the following possible reasons

1. Very large number of image files in that folder
   
2. Explorer view shows many image details such as dimension etc, thus having to open each file to retrieve information
   

Not sure if this is the reason - Windows Explorer does sometimes things of its own.

One question: does this always happen, even if Windows was freshly started, or when Windows has been running for a long time?