cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user) wrote:
On Mon, 04 Apr 2005 22:05:02 -0400, Rick T

(I think I'm going back to WinME, this'll let me keep up with updates
while staying relatively secure)

Is WinME OK with this, in your experience?

hasn't complained yet g... no, I just recently put Win2K on to see
what it's like (different), the problems I experienced (apparently) with
IE6 were on WinME.

I note where "mouse or keyboard sticks during file operations" is listed
as not being related... IME that occurred also with the upgrade to IE6
and I'm in for an uninstall if it isn't fixed.

What typically would happen is during heavy disk usage the mouse would
stop responding.

I mention that specifically because that's a far more ominous failure
pattern, typically being due to delays deep down at the driver level.

Nothing else seems to stop pointer movement (though delayed pointer
type changes are common).

The two that come to mind a
- sick HD retries (HD LED on, silent or cyclical clanking)
- LAN cable issues (HD LED typically off)

HD's fine though I occasionally get that first issue (occasionally as in
once every couple months for a minute)

As to the cause, my magic 8-ball says IE6 WE relies on the NT threading
model which causes 9x to go nicely pear-shaped (and explains the
stickiness too).

More on that?

pure speculation on my part; NT(/2K/XP) use a more advanced threading
model; my theory is IE6 (specifically those 2 files) was writ with that
in mind and it just barely works on 9x.

Or, bluntly, there's too many forking file processes floating around
tripping over each other for 9x to handle properly.

Hmmm... wonder if anybody with that problem uses SCSI.


Rick

ps:
Win2K is nice and is more robust than WinME (only one crash and that was
on a non-cert driver) but booting takes a long time... WinME + license
vs. Win2K without (or Win2K + $$$ to get one) is starting to get
weighted towards WinME.

I also have occasional mouse-sticking problems (on the original IE) with
2K, but that isn't restricted to file operations and feels more like a
tasking priority issue; didn't with WinME + original IE.