Documents and Programs slow to open by double clicking icon.

I have a Dell Laptop with 1.7GHZ Pentium M processor, 1GB of Ram and 80 GB hard drive. It is running Windows XP Pro with all latest patches installed. Since past few weeks i am noticing slow down in my system performance. No matter what file i try to open, it takes more than 40 seconds to launch. This happens with file types like .doc, .xls, .pdf , or even a small .txt file. I dont think a text file should take 40 seconds to launch, right? No matter you double click or right click > open, it takes the same time.

I thought it could be virus creating the problem, but after running multiple spyware programs such as Adware and Spybot, all programs dint found anything suspicious. Any idea what is wrong and how can i fix the problem?

Many thanks.

I would like to as few things before i can suggest you any workout. Is this notebook connected to any network? Are you trying to open those files saved on Network? What happans when you launch a program and do "Open With" option? Does it takes the same amount of time?

If it is on network then such problems are often caused by inactive network drive references in the registry.

Thank you very much for the help Troy. Yes, sometimes this laptop used to be connected to a network but the problem remains even though when it is not connected. However i tried running regscanner and found two obsolete network
shares. I removed them from my registry hoping it may fix the problem but not. The problem remains yet and i guess is because these shares have been changed for sometime.

Let me tell you that just before the problem started, i installed older version of WinAmp and CutePDF programs on this laptop. Could this be the cause of problem? However i removed them just an hour ago to see if it makes any difference but yet no change.

Now what ? Could a DLL been overwritten with an older version? Please help.

I havent tried Regmon but I was using Filemon from system internals before
posting here. The one thing I notice and dont quite understand is when I
double click the icon on my desktop, FileMon immediately shows the call for
Excel but afterthat it starts querying information for the majority of files
on my desktop. I see a lot of requests for Mcafee Update but I disabled that
in startup and removed the keys under RUN in the registry at some point then
it starts calling Excel again. I have a copy of the filemon log but not sure
if file attachments are allowed on this newsgroup.

Once again thanks for your advice and time!

Here is a small update. I tried running RegMon, and found the following which i think pertinent after double clicking a Word Document icon:

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.doc\Progid NOT FOUND
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.doc\Application NOT FOUND

Hope this helps you guys to analyze the problem. ProgID not found kind of
indicates why there may be a delay
51.58301544 EXCEL.EXE:1956 OpenKey HKCU\htmlfile\shel\Edit\command NOT FOUND

explorer.exe:740 QueryValue HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\RecentDocs\.xls\2 BUFFER OVERFLOW

explorer.exe:740 QueryValue HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ProgramFilesDir (x86) NOT FOUND

HKCU\Word.Document.8\CurVer NOT FOUND

HKCU\.doc\ShellEx\DataHandler NOT FOUND


Here are few more after double clicking an Excel Document Icon:
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Ole\RWLockResourceTimeOut NOT FOUND

explorer.exe:740 OpenKey HKCU\Drive\shellex\FolderExtensions\{fbeb8a05-beee-4442-804e-409d6c4515e9} NOT FOUND

explorer.exe:740 EnumerateKey HKCR\Drive\shellex\FolderExtensions NO MORE ENTRIES

To see if the problem is caused by a network drive reference in the registry, download TDIMon from here. Start TDIMon and start capturing events. Now, double-click an Excel document. If there is a network activity, TDImon captures and displays it accurately. You want to monitor lines containing string "TDI_CONNECT", which indicates that the system is trying to connect to a network drive or share. For example, the line may look like this:

System:4 827170C8 TDI_CONNECT TCP:192.168.1.10:1255 192.168.1.11:139

Where "192.168.1.10:1255" is the Local IP, and "192.168.1.11:139" is the IP of the remote computer. Let me know how it goes. If there is no such activity, then the problem is something else, which we have to find out yet.