Print Dialog Box is slow to Appear or Load

When I select File > Print and hit the Enter key, it takes a very long time
for the Dialogue box to appear. The range is from 15 to 50 seconds. This
seems to be a problem in every application from Word, to Internet Explorer to
Firefox.
I only noticed this delay after the contents of the “temp” and “temporary
internet files” were cleared under Documents and Settings\user\local settings\
What can I do to improve the performance and reduce the delay?

[I am running Windows XP fully patched]