Very slow changing & listing directories.
 

Hello,

I've got this interesting problem on my machine. The further I go down the directory tree, the slower it takes to show the files in WIndows Explorer. ANd I mean REALLY slow. Up to a minute to go from c:\my documents\work to c:\my documents\work\spreadsheets for example. The computer will just sit there seemingly frozen and then eventually load. And once it goes slow, it remains slow no matter what directory I look at. But it only happens with Windows Explorer. If I browse through the tree using File -> Open in MS Word for example, it is normal speed.

I've done the usual stuff - antivirus, antispyware, scandisk, and defragmented - and it comes out clean like a whistle. The drive is 20 GB with 11 GB used up. It is running Windows 98 SE with 256MB ram on P4 processor.

Any thoughts?

Thanks

I would recommend making a good backup of your data. Because you're using Windows 98SE, you're using the FAT32 filesystem, which has a bad habit of - every now and then - corrupting the file table, resulting in data loss.

If you can, I'd recommend reformatting - it will wipe the disk and create new file tables, effectively fixing the problem. I don't believe there's a way to repair partially corrupted/damaged file tables - but someone may know of software to do that.

Win98 also has a nasty habit of corrupting it's page file, that it NEVER purges.

Try this:

Boot in MS-DOS mode and change directory to windows (cd\windows) and delete the file win386.swp (del win386.swp).

Reboot and see what happens, and don't worry the file doesn't contain anything but temporary memory information.

Win98 also has a bad habit of just being around. It sucks. If at all possible, load Windows 2000 or XP. It will run better.

Sorry, I'm done now with my MS bashing.