"My Computer" desktop shortcut broken

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Last night something went wrong with my "My Computer" icon. When I ciick on it it now takes over 2 minutes to open up with the list of my drives, etc. !! Once open, browsing files and folders is unaffected, except if I navigate upwards to 'My Computer' it doesn't display for another 2 minutes.

I've tried deleting and replacing the desktop icon with no luck. I've Googled and found nothing that helps. For the time being, when I eventually got it open, I've dragged shortcuts onto my desktop for drive C, D, and other things I need. These work.

I've tried the usual virus scans, defragging, temporarily switching off my Kaspersky, etc. and nothing helps. Has anyone any suggestions as to how to correct tbis strange and extremely annoying problem?

Thanks
John

When you open "My Computer" it accesses ALL attached drives, including ones it thinks are attached but perhaps are not, and ones that are having access problems.

It sounds like you are confronting either a timeout problem accessing a "drive" that is no longer connected or one you are having access problems with.

If you are connected to a network and have a mapped drive letter to a network machine then this may also be a comms problem.

First suggestion: Reboot - preferably a full power cycle (assuming you haven't already)
Second suggestion: Remove all removable drives (external USB drives, thumb drives, SD cards etc.) Don't forget that MFC with the memory device slots...

Third suggestion: Be patient, open My Computer and try accessing every drive letter - if one is slow to respond you have probably identified the problem device.

John I hope that someone has a suggestion to fix it for you. Sometimes I think windows just breaks for good and its time to reinstall or use a backup.

Last year I spent £20 to buy acronis home 2010 from amazon, it was money well spent.

Saying that I have an irritating problem with windows 7 in that a link clicked in ie8 wont open as maxamised, have just to live with it, as I don't have a backup of windows where it does work and its too much hassle to reinstall everything including applications.

Try the tech forums on moneysavingexpert some good posters on there. No doubt you have tried system restore.

john, another great source of help is www.majorgeeks.com where you can post the problem and, virtually within minutes, get an answer.

btw, have you tried 'restore'? if it's software-related that may sort it out. no harm in trying.

Thanks guys. I've tried a lot of different stuff today - spent hours on it to no avail as yet. I've just unplugged all my USB things, except mouse and keyboard and am going to reboot and see what that does. I'm pretty sure it was something to do with the fact I had a 4GB memory stick attached and it was probably just looking at it in order to put up the 'My Computer' display. The trouble is, I've taken that out and it's as if my computer doesn't understand that. Let's see what a reboot now does.

What I'm left with after that is a restore. What do you think of this:
1. I have an Acronic back up from a month ago.
2. Backup my Windows registry.
3. Fire up Acronis
4. Restore last month's C:\Windows folder (and subfolders)
5. Exit Acronis, reboot.
6. Restore registry from 2.

Is it ok just to restore the Windows directory on its own like that?

John

John, could you comment more on this, please: "it's as if my computer doesn't understand that"

You didn't activate Ready Boost, did you?

Matt, I'm not an expert, but if my theory is correct that the trouble somehow started when I had the 4GB USB memory stick in, then I was wondering that even though I removed it perhaps Windows thinks it's still there, and hence is still taking 2 minutes to display "My Computer".
All other aspects of my PC are working fine, except for this crazy delay when I click "My Computer".

John

Quote:

All other aspects of my PC are working fine, except for this crazy delay when I click "My Computer".

John, I'm certain that your computer is OK as far as the Windows configs and drivers are concerned, a restore the way you've described is unlikely to resolve anything. The problem is associated with a drive letter that is having access problems.

Certainly if the problem is related to the Windows configuration then using the current registry will keep the problem, err, current...

Have you rebooted yet? In almost all Windows issues this should be your first step.

You haven't responded as to whether you're on a network with shared drives. This can also be a problem area as a drive letter mapped to another machine across a network with problems or to a machine with comms problems will certainly cause this.

Put the usb stick in computer again and if you haven't alrady done so use safely remove hardware from system tray to remove it and see what happens. If doesn't work I'd just do the acronis restore to bring you back to a mth ago, no more point in wasting more hours on this, making sure that you copy any songs you have done in the last mth in the c drive to a different partition or drive on computer, and once acronis is done just copying them back to the right location.

Quote:

Thanks guys. I've tried a lot of different stuff today - The trouble is, I've taken that out and it's as if my computer doesn't understand that. Let's see what a reboot now does.

My guess is if you have taken your own advice on the reboot you are fixed. Let me just make the observation that despite differing opinions on this matter, you need to either eject a USB drive of any type or use the safely remove hardware option on the task bar. The first reason is that you can have an open file or folder on the external drive. This may be in a browsing window or it may be something that is open in a program. Either way, pulling the drive with a file open can cause a corrupted disk which makes the entire disk inaccesible later. This close down with a file open seems to be less of a problem in windows than it was with old DOS applications but it is something that I still see from time to time.

The other side of this is also something that it looks like you were smart enough to figure out on your own. Windows is still looking for the thumb drive. Since you didn't eject it, and it has the driver associated with that USB port it is still looking for it. The reboot should solve that. If it doesn't, before you start doing more complicated things, just do a system retore back to a point before you plugged your memory stick into the usb port. That will put things back the way it was before the problem started. If that doesn't work then you can start looking at other things.

John, do we know what version of Windows this is?

I am familiar with an obscure problem in XP that occurs when you have used too many USB devices in the computer's lifetime, and I have a set of steps to fix the problem if needed. It allows you to remove hidden unused drivers (and there are more than you think). If you hit the limit, odd things happen; I was there once.

Matt, I don't know about too many different ones in the PCs lifetime, but I've always had about eight or so connected. So maybe that was a factor, I say was, because I lost patience today, zapped the C: (os) drive, reformatted it and reinstalled XP. I think PCs tend to get bloated after a while anyway, and certainly things are a lot quicker now. I've got all my data on D: and E: and also backed up on external drive. I just have to reinstall forty or so applications now!
NB: I didn't go for Windows 7 at this point because I felt that might be a bridge too far, and anyway I'm arranging for the specialist DAW supplier that supplied it to do a 'service' on it soon at which time they're going to move it to Windows 7 and upgrade the memory and other components.
Thanks for helping out.

John

Sounds good, John.

What I was mentioning is one example of the "bloated" bit, as you say. It isn't that you had eight USB devices; it is the total of USB devices ever used on this PC, each of which has a driver still loaded, and at some point, the system says "Enough". I suspect more people have this problem than they think.

When you do go to Windows 7, you'll be pleased. I have been running Windows 7 Pro 64-bit since April, and have not had even one BSOD. It's been out long enough that I no longer have problems finding drivers. This is the best OS for me, ever.

I always wonder why people insist on swatting flys with sledgehammers...

Sometimes you just want to assure they are dead!

Quote:

I am familiar with an obscure problem in XP that occurs when you have used too many USB devices in the computer's lifetime, and I have a set of steps to fix the problem if needed. It allows you to remove hidden unused drivers (and there are more than you think). If you hit the limit, odd things happen; I was there once.

I have used many external drives over the years with my XP computer and would be interested in that set of steps, if you could be so kind Matt.
Thanks in advance
Alyn

To see unused USB devices:

1. Start, Run
2. cmd.exe
3. set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
4. devmgmt.msc
5. in Device Manager, View, Show Hidden Devices
6. expand the USB line

Unused devices will have a grayed-out icon. Delete the ones for devices you no longer use.

Thanks a lot, Matt