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General discussion

after moving files, taskbar and start menu take forever to load

by arglobe Feb 6, 2004 11:36AM PST

Hi and thanks for the opportunity to seek help.

I have a ?generic? system composed of two physical hard drives (C and E on one, and D on the other), 256 k ram, and an AMD Athlon 1.39 processor, Iomega cdrw (12x12x32), and a generic cd. I have a small network with another pc connected via SMC Barricade router. Two users are currently listed on this machine with admin rights.

When I installed Windows XP Home, I was skeptical. I set up my system to allow me to choose between 98 SE and XP to "test the waters." It?s been a long time since I?ve gone into 98SE, but I haven?t removed it for several reasons. 98SE remained on my C Drive, and things ran smoothly for a very long time.

The problem started when my D drive began to fill up. I moved some programs and document files over to C, but it didn?t solve much. I downloaded TweakUI for XP, and moved a lot of things over to C, which did wonders. However, a strange thing happened. When I log in, it takes the task bar and start menu forever to load. When they finally do, ?start? ? ?all programs? contains a lot of files that it didn?t have before. It seems all of the program files were copied to my c:/program files directory root, as well as remaining in their subdirectories under program files. There are a lot of .dll, .ini, .exe, etc. shown in my programs list. I believe that?s why it?s taking so long, because the other user loads quickly and doesn?t have the ?junk? in the program files list.

Any suggestions as to what to do?
Thanks in advance..
A

Discussion is locked

5 Posts
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Re:after moving files, taskbar and start menu take forever to load
by r. proffitt Forum moderator Feb 6, 2004 11:38AM PST

If any item in start or say "documents" are not as noted in the start menu, each non-found item will cause a hit on time.

You have the check the link on each item.

Bob

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Re:after moving files, taskbar and start menu take forever to load
by Papa Echo Feb 6, 2004 8:48PM PST

Are you supposed to copy program files ? That may explain all those .dll and .exe files. I would have uninstalled the programs and reinstall them to the C drive. Are you able to use System Restore to roll back and start again ?

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Re:Re:after moving files, taskbar and start menu take forever to load
by arglobe Feb 7, 2004 12:14AM PST

Hi again,

I should have said "moved" the programs and not "copy," sorry. I needed to free space on D, so I moved a lot of things over to C. This did free up a lot, but caused this issue.

When I used TweakUI, I moved all user's settings over to C as well. What's puzzling is that the other user's task bar and start menu does not have this problem. :/

R. Proffitt: I'm not sure what you meant by your suggestion. Would you mind elaborating for me?

I also noticed that, while loading, Task Manager shows explorer using a lot of memory. There are also a lot of page faults occuring.

As a side, I use Panda Platinum for my antivirus program.

I'm thinking to moving all of the excess into a temp folder of some sort to see if the problem clears up. As long as the programs run as they should, I don't see why I won't be able to delete the folder. Do you?

Thanks again!

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Why it delays.
by r. proffitt Forum moderator Feb 7, 2004 12:34AM PST

If you have some document or program in the start menu, Windows checks the file to see if the ICON for the menu needs to be updated or if not, made.

This causes a long delay if you moved an item and the menu item or recent documents is pointing to the old locations.

There are no tools to fix this and you get to manually right click each item to verify it's pointing to something that exists.

Bob

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Re:Re:Re:after moving files, taskbar and start menu take forever to load
by Papa Echo Feb 7, 2004 5:43PM PST

If I understand you correct:-

So you moved documents as well as programs ? Programs are not supposed to be moved--if you move them, including the .dll, configuaration files, etc., the program will not work any more. Further more, it will invoke Windows to put shortcuts at the start menu, with unknown 'targets', since in moving the program files, the registry entries for the programs will not be changed- they still point to the previous program folders, and as Bob has mentioned, Windows will check and find no targets for the shortcuts, taking up precious time. So, have you tried System Restore ? Stat again- move the documents an uninstall the programs you want to 'move'(this will remove registry entries and start menu items related to the programs) and then reinstall them to the drive you want. This will create new registry entries and shorts at the start menu ( Programs do not have to be installed to the default folder " Program Files" ) Hope this helps.

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