Win98 SE reinstalled; desktop hesitation

I say hesitation cause its not long enough of a delay to be considered
hanging. But after installing Win98SE over Win98FE and also over a
separated Win98Se partition, both developed this hesitation at a point
when the desktop is almost fully loaded anyway.

Its only for a about 5-10 seconds, and not really interferring with
anything. But not knowing why is killing me.

I've tried disabling and installing various start-up programs and so
forth and even swapping hard drives around. And re-installing again,
but nothing works. Reverting back to Win98FE (prior to the reinstall),
however, eliminates the hesitation.

So... "IT" happened during the re-install, but "WHAT" happened? Does
anyone know of something in particular ---some setting of some sort or
some specific file that is added or changed ---- that would cause this?

Thanks for any advice ideas,
Larry

Try using the system configuration utility to eliminate the startup items
one by one to see what is causing the lag.

Since it occurs when the desktop is being loaded it is most likely a program
or application being loaded.

--
Jon Hildrum
DTS MVP

www.hildrum.com
"1966olds" wrote in message
oups.com...
I say hesitation cause its not long enough of a delay to be considered
hanging. But after installing Win98SE over Win98FE and also over a
separated Win98Se partition, both developed this hesitation at a point
when the desktop is almost fully loaded anyway.

Its only for a about 5-10 seconds, and not really interferring with
anything. But not knowing why is killing me.

I've tried disabling and installing various start-up programs and so
forth and even swapping hard drives around. And re-installing again,
but nothing works. Reverting back to Win98FE (prior to the reinstall),
however, eliminates the hesitation.

So... "IT" happened during the re-install, but "WHAT" happened? Does
anyone know of something in particular ---some setting of some sort or
some specific file that is added or changed ---- that would cause this?

Thanks for any advice ideas,
Larry

Jon,

Thanks. I have already tried disabling and uninstalling some programs
or removing them from start-up sequence. Used msconfig as well as a
freeware program that also shows similar info but in different format.

However, I have been basically just guessing and stopping one program
at a time from loading. Must confess I have not yet gone to the point
of un-checking ALL start-up items in registry, start-up folder, etc...
and then one by one re-checking them. Something I should do.

Course, if I shut-down ALL start-up items and the hesitation is still
there, I will drive myself nutz continuing to search for the cause.
This is one of those situations where I am obsessed more with the
reason than with actually correcting the problem, though certainly
would like to correct it also.

Larry

On 6 Mar 2005 06:24:42 -0800, "1966olds"
wrote:

I say hesitation cause its not long enough of a delay to be considered
hanging. But after installing Win98SE over Win98FE and also over a
separated Win98Se partition, both developed this hesitation at a point
when the desktop is almost fully loaded anyway.

Its only for a about 5-10 seconds, and not really interferring with
anything. But not knowing why is killing me.

I've tried disabling and installing various start-up programs and so
forth and even swapping hard drives around. And re-installing again,
but nothing works. Reverting back to Win98FE (prior to the reinstall),
however, eliminates the hesitation.

So... "IT" happened during the re-install, but "WHAT" happened? Does
anyone know of something in particular ---some setting of some sort or
some specific file that is added or changed ---- that would cause this?

Thanks for any advice ideas,
Larry

Larry,

May be a problem with the Icon cache. Try deleting the
ShellIconCache file in the Windows folder and re-boot, it will be
re-created. Reboot from Start Shutdown, not a shortcut.

The cache may be too small so if the above does not help try this:
Paste the lines between the lines starting with REGEDIT4 and include
the blank line at the end into Notepad and save as Maxicons.reg.
D-click the file to merge it into the Registry. Reboot.
__________________________________________________ ____
REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\explorer]
"Max Cached Icons"="4096"

__________________________________________________ ________

This also helps if the Desktop Icons refresh frequently.

Backup the Registry first.

Regards,

Bill Watt
Computer Help and Information http://home.epix.net/~bwatt/

Bill,

I couldn't find anything called "REGEDIT4" nor the entry for
"maxicons". I did try your suggestion about the shellicons file with
partial success.

It worked after the first reboot, and I was encouraged by the fact that
the creation date of the original file was very close to when I
installed win98SE over FE. Unfortunately, after a second reboot the
hesitation returns.

Am thinking of creating some kind of entry to delete the file everytime
windows is shutdown or started to see the effects, and open to other
suggestions, but still trying to solve the mystery at this stage.

Thanks,
Larry

On 8 Mar 2005 17:52:57 -0800, "1966olds"
wrote:

Bill,

I couldn't find anything called "REGEDIT4" nor the entry for
"maxicons". I did try your suggestion about the shellicons file with
partial success.

It worked after the first reboot, and I was encouraged by the fact that
the creation date of the original file was very close to when I
installed win98SE over FE. Unfortunately, after a second reboot the
hesitation returns.

Am thinking of creating some kind of entry to delete the file everytime
windows is shutdown or started to see the effects, and open to other
suggestions, but still trying to solve the mystery at this stage.

Thanks,
Larry

Larry,

Copy paste the lines between the lines below starting with REGEDIT4
and include the blank line at the end into Notepad and save as
Maxicons.reg. Double click the resulting Maxicons.reg file to merge
it into the Registry. Reboot.
__________________________________________________ ____
REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\explorer]
"Max Cached Icons"="4096"

__________________________________________________ ________

What this does is create a little REG file that you double-click to
run it. It will insert the lines into the Registry.

There is no REGEDT4, it's only the first line of the file you create
with Notepad. After pasting the lines into Notepad you save it as
Maxicons.reg. Then double click it. Make sure Notepad saves it as a
REG file not a TXT file.

Regards,

Bill Watt
Computer Help and Information http://home.epix.net/~bwatt/

Bill,

Was able to create the registry file and import it as you instructed,
but no change.

I should probably describe the "hesitation" or its timing a little
better. The desktop loads...the wallpaper is visible and the icons are
there, and the hourlglass AND mouse pointer are present. Then the
hourglass disappears and only the pointer remains...and its at this
point that the desktop should be fully loaded and useable, correct?

Well, I have the taskbar set to auto-hide, and once the mouse pointer
is just that (without an hourglass alongside it), moving the mouse to
the bottom of the screen SHOULD cause the taskbar to appear, yes? Yes.

Its only a a maximum of 10 seconds during which the taskbar cannot be
summoned, and if it weren't for the fact that the Mouse Pointer appears
ready (no hourglass) and eveyrthing else loaded, I would just figure
windows was still loading. And of course there's the fact that this did
not happen until after the re-install of 98SE over itself or over 98FE
as well. I even borrowed someone else's Win98SE installation disk and
used IT to re-install to see if it could be narrowed down to a problem
with that, but results were the same.

So its something that wasn't present in either the original Win98SE
install or Win98FE install, but is there after Win98SE installation
process has been completed.

Larry

Reply is inside message.

On 10 Mar 2005 22:05:02 -0800, "1966olds"
wrote:

Bill,

Was able to create the registry file and import it as you instructed,
but no change.

I should probably describe the "hesitation" or its timing a little
better. The desktop loads...the wallpaper is visible and the icons are
there, and the hourlglass AND mouse pointer are present. Then the
hourglass disappears and only the pointer remains...and its at this
point that the desktop should be fully loaded and useable, correct?

Not necessarily, There can be a pause as items in the start menu are
getting loaded. In my case it takes 5 or more seconds to load Zone
Alarm after the mouse is restored from the hourglass. The mouse
doesn't work until the loading is finished. When all the items are
visible in the Sys Tray ( where the clock is ) everything should be
loaded. This includes the Office Bar if you use it.

Try Start Run and enter Msconfig. Under the Startup tab see if
anything new is loading since you installed SE. You never know. :-)

Well, I have the taskbar set to auto-hide, and once the mouse pointer
is just that (without an hourglass alongside it), moving the mouse to
the bottom of the screen SHOULD cause the taskbar to appear, yes? Yes.

Its only a a maximum of 10 seconds during which the taskbar cannot be
summoned, and if it weren't for the fact that the Mouse Pointer appears
ready (no hourglass) and eveyrthing else loaded, I would just figure
windows was still loading. And of course there's the fact that this did
not happen until after the re-install of 98SE over itself or over 98FE
as well. I even borrowed someone else's Win98SE installation disk and
used IT to re-install to see if it could be narrowed down to a problem
with that, but results were the same.

So its something that wasn't present in either the original Win98SE
install or Win98FE install, but is there after Win98SE installation
process has been completed.

Try Msconfig.

Regards,

Bill Watt
Computer Help and Information http://home.epix.net/~bwatt/

Well I have solved most of the mystery (and problem), and guess I'll
have to live with it for now.

First of all... I have multiple user profiles and determined today that
only one of them is experiencing the noticeable lag in the desktop
loading completely.

Also... that desktop is et to "view the desktop as a webpage" and the
others are not.

Lastly, some of the annoyance with the delay is the PERCEPTION that the
desktop has fully loaded. In other words, as long as stuff is happening
on the screen (windows opening and closing, etc.) its obvious windows
is still getting itself ready. But the problem here was/is that all
that visual activity had stopped and yet there ws that delay or
hesitation. Was like eveyrthing LOOKS ready, but its not yet.

So one factor (although again...only noticed on this desktop) is that
the Antivirus program is loading later on that desktop. But since I had
the box to show the AV's little logo screen unchecked, it wasn't as
obvious.

In other words, it is mostly the anti-virus program loading that is
causing the delay, but other matters were obscuring that, the greatest
one being that I couldn't see exactly when the AV app was loading. Once
I enabled its window to flash at startup, it became easier to diagnose.

However.... I would still like to know if there is a way to change the
order in which things are loading at startup on each desktop. I believe
there was a shareware or freeware program I had seen a long time ago
that could do that.

Not just Msconfig which only determines WHAT loads, but something that
could actually alter the priority Windows is giving to each startup
item.

Cause I believe that is what happened during the reinstall of Win98se.
Before that, the priority was probably determined partly by what order
the apps had been installed in---whether minutes or years apart. But
during windows setup, since all the applications were already present,
that history or chronology no longer had relevance.

Anyway... as I said, its mostly my perception of the load process. Its
not taking noticeably longer than the other desktops as far as I can
tell, but its like it has a pause and resume phase and that's a little
disconcerting. Again, though, I can live with it now, though would
still prefer to change it. I may even try blowing away that user
profile and re-creating it from scratch.

Thank you for your suggestions and for allowing me to brainstorm via
the NG.

Larry