I’ve just been called in today by one of my client because he complained that the computer sometime hangs when he opens up any folder or application. I tried duplicating the problem and I did saw how it happened. The computer doesn’t hang completely. The desktop shortcuts work as I am still able to launch programs from the shortcuts. It’s only the taskbar, start button and explorer that freezes. If I wait for few minutes(sometimes can be up to 10 minutes) for the folder/application to run, I would then be able to access the taskbar and start button.
I launched Task Manager to see which program might be causing the full load of the CPU and resulting it to hang but nothing. Everything was normal as the System Idle Process is at 80-90%. It’s easy if Task Manager shows a process is taking up all the CPU usage as I can just kill the process and it’d go back to normal. It’s quite hard to troubleshoot what’s causing this weird behavior because it’s intermittent. Sometimes opening My Documents folder would hang and sometimes don’t. There’s no 100% way to duplicate this problem.
After much searching for an answer and hours of troubleshooting, I think I might have found the answer to this problem.
Here are a list of suggestions I found that “could” solve the problem. Some might work for you and some don’t because it depends on which services or programs that causing the taskbar and explorer to hang problem. Only try the suggestions below if there are no 100% CPU usage on your Task Manager when the taskbar freezes.
1. Disable “Automatically search for network folders and printers”
- Go to Control Panel and run Folder Options. Click the View tab and uncheck “Automatically search for network folders and printers”
2. Delete any unused network Printers.
- Go to Control Panel and run Printers and Faxes. Delete any unused network Printers by using your mouse to right click and select Delete.
3. Delete automatically found network shared folders.
- Go to My Network Places and delete the found shared folders.
4. Delete mapped drives.
- Go to My Computer and delete any mapped drives.
5. Hide icons for networked UPnP devices.
- Go to My Network Places and on the left pane, click “HIDE icons for network UPnP devices“. If it says “SHOW icons for networked UPnP devices”, then it’s currently hidden. You can skip this suggested step.
6. Disable “Background Intelligent Transfer Service“.
- Go to Start -> Run and type msconfig. Click on Services tab and uncheck Background Intelligent Transfer Service to disable it.
7. Disable “SSDP Discovery Service“.
- Go to Start -> Run and type msconfig. Click on Services tab and uncheck Background Intelligent Transfer Service to disable it.
If all the 7 suggestions above still doesn’t solve your problem, use Task Manager to “End Process” any third party programs that’s running. I’ve tried all 7 steps above and none worked for me. But when I terminated a process called “Watch3.exe”, immediately the taskbar and explorer starts to respond.
You can also try disabling Startup items from “msconfig” and see which is the culprit that is causing this problem.
As you can see, there are no one solution to fix this problem as all computers are different. Different in the sense of having different software installed and configured differently. That’s why some method will work for you and some don’t.
Related posts:
Help with XP windows problem with program open use the mouse and right cick and the screen goes back to when I open it
it is a bad idea to disable Background Intelligent Transfer Service.
windows update and automatic update requires this service which performs the actual download of updates for windows
If the Taskbar hangs for few seconds and there is a frequent file system activity in:
%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\Microsoft\Network\Downloader
(usually C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Network\Downloader)
then maybe the cause is BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service).
i dont know if this will work some PPl say its a virus and you need a good anti virus T_T im really confused what to do..
my mother was using this PC last night then when i opened this at the morning this problem occured… i dont seem to understand what is happening to my PC….
im trying this solutions now…
Thanks Man It Helped me sooo much
MKDerb
Also try disabling services you don’t need.
svchost is service host, which hosts all the services.
The more instances there are running, the more services you are using. Going to start>run and typing services.msc will take you to some type of windows service manager. Some are totally useless while some are needed in certain cases. eg. Telephony is useless when you have no dial-up type of connection, and Remote Registry is even more useless unless you are using Remote Assistance which will not need to use the registry in 80% of cases.
Keep safe, and don’t use more than 1 antivirus.
I am having a similar problem to the freezing taskbar, when I try using certain shortcuts then explorer.exe freezes then I have to restart it just to encounter the same problem. Hopefully a reboot will solve it.
Well I have a similar problem with the taskbar and explorer being frozen, but it isn’t on startup. If I leave the laptop on idle and I come back after 10 – 20 minutes explorer and the taskbar are frozen. I can’t access the task manager for some odd reason and the only thing I can do is manually shut it down. This has only been recent as in 2 days now this has been happening.
My symptom was that the task bar would freeze after logging in from screen saver mode (I have a secure system and I have to enter a password each time I want to exit screen saver mode). The task bar would freeze for up to two minutes and then everything would work normally. I suspected the security system, but that was not the problem as it turned out. I found a suggested solution at another site and it worked for me too: remove the language bar from the taskbar! That’s it! I have a Dell Inspiron 5100 running Windows XP with 1Gb of memory and 2.8GHz Pentium 4.
My Task Bar freezes time after time.
I did navigated to “Event Viewer” as in #37 posting, and found out that PlugPlayManager was “timed out sending notification of device interface change” to Windows Media Player.
As soos an I ended (killed) the process wmplayer.exe, my Task Bar became operational again.
Now, at least I know where to check which application causes the problem and shut it down safely.
Hi,
my computer (Win XP) was hanging after the log-in, too… i.e. the taskbar was appearing with delay. I solved the problem this way:
I opened the “Event Viewer” under Computer Managment”…
(Click Start, and then click Control Panel. Click Performance and Maintenance, then click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Computer Management. – cf. support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb%3Ben-us%3B308427&x=5&y=11)
The Event Viewer showed me that there was an error occuring with the Fax service every time I started the computer. I deleted the installed “Fax” and set the Fax service to “manual”. After that the problem was solved. There was no hanging at all any more.
Well, some weeks later I bougth a Port Replicator for my notebook. Now there appears that the DHCP has some problem with it – assigning IP-adress etc. But it has not really an influence… I thought there is some kind of “hanging” but I am not sure.
I have this problems when I use Corel Draw.
I have this problem with the taskbar, but nothing above helps me, anything else maybe i could try if you know?
por alternativos usa proces explorer de sysinternals
Sorry, I meant solution 8.
McAfee SiteAdvisor was the culprit in my case. So indeed, solution 7 was great!
My Acer Aspire 1691 WLMi crashed on me and decided to revive it. Installed more RAM and increased HD to 160G. At windows XP (SP3) pro startup, freezes for 20 seconds then everything pops up. The cursor hangs/drags and it is so slow. I dont have a recovery disc and the Acer website doesnt seem like it gives me all the drivers I need. went to Driver Guide and downloaded remaining drivers. I have NOD32 and the funny thing is when I run a scan, it runs almost perfectly with occassional lags. I\’ve been working on this for 3 days now. please HELP. I need this to run my business. Thank you all.
To Raymond cc ,
I must say “a Big thanks ” to yours useful article ! i been reading yours post long time, but this time ….it really helping me a lot.
I usually love to tweak my windowsXP to the max!, but this time something was wrong (after using a “Ram booster” program call “Mz rambooster”)
Thanks fully this article helping me to get my taskbar respond back… again, thank you!
Using : Acer Aspire 4520 , AMD TurionX2 1900mhz with 1gigabyte ram. SP2 (with all MS patch & AMD optimization Applied )
hey man it sounded like a good idea but it didnt work for my computer. although svchost.exe hoggs up about 40-60% of my cpu sometimes. my computer also freezes up or hangs, when i try to open my computer. also, the taskbar is the same as you described,, explorer is also slow like that. but if i end svchost.exe process, explorer is fine and so is the taskbar. but my computer freezes completely when i open my computer.(my computer the folder). when i delete svchost though alot of things dont work like windows firewall. and some other stuff like my cd-rom. my email is tyl3z@hotmail.com if anybody knows a way to fix svchost.exe because i know thats what my problem is. please email me. it is very urgent. thx
bueno yo ando con este problema y necesito solucionarlo ya. Daré un try a todas las alternativas. Gracias man
what is the effect of fail pawer supply
Sorry I forgot a few things, makes sure when you reboot with f12 that you have your Windows XP cd in your main cd drive. Also, after you get to the screen where it says \”to install Windows XP press Enter\” the next screen should ask you to press f8 to agree, go ahead and press f8. Then the next screen will ask \”To do a repare install of Windows press R\” or \”To continue installing a fresh copy of Windows press ESC\”. First try doing a repair install then if that doesn\’t work, which it doesn\’t for me, then do a fresh copy of windows by following the instructions above. God Speed.
Welp, I figure that the only way to solve this problem if none of the above works is to do a repair install of windows. Or you can install over your windows installation. To do this reboot with f12 I believe and select choice 5 to boot from IDE CD-Rom. Make sure to press any key when it asks you to. Then wait until you can select to intall windows XP, and press Enter. Sometimes for me the keyboard locks up here and I can’t press enter, to prevent this keep pressing num lock until you get to that screen, then press enter. Then go to the screen where it ask your if you want to format the drive before install, or press L to delete the previous installation. Press L but, before you do any of this, make sure you don’t have any saved files in the Windows directory that you don’t want to loose like games, sounds, screensavers, media, recources, etc. Once this is complete you can view your old desktop or documents for the other windows installation by going to c:\Documents and Settings\ “your old user name here”\ My Documents or Desktop or Whatever. The new Document and Destop will have your computer name after the username seperated by a period. That’s it, good luck.
Il problema si è presentato dopo l’installazione di SP3 (che strano eh?), ma ho risolto applicando tutte le soluzioni in una volta, col tempo proverò a riabilitare le cose una alla volta.
Grazie per i consigli!
works like a charm.
thanks.
I followed your steps and it worked like a charm. :)
Thank you, Raymon.
Laptop gets hanged when i select c drive. I have only one drive on my m/c.
THANKXXXXX man. You are a real ITlai Lama man. Phew! my year long problem solved in a jiffy. once again thanks.
After a few days of working with standard shortcuts, I think the problem has been fixed in XP SP3.
The last one worked for me too.
Thank you.
The Solutions to Taskbar Hangs or Freezes in Windows XP works like magic !!
Thanks
thanks last item worked for me
hhhhhhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
if one have multiple network card on the system, or even virtual network card, one may want to go through this also :
– Right click on My Network Place, choose Properties
– on menu bar, choose Advanced
– under “Advanced Settings windows, Adapter and Bindings tab, Connections” section, use the arrow on the right to move the appropriate network card to the top. Usually will be the Local Area Connection.
– Then click on “Provider Order” tab
– in the Network Providers Tree, move the “Microsoft Windows network” to the top of Network providers tree.
Raymond,
I am having this problem in all my Windows 2K/XP systems. Keyboard shortcuts on the start menu sometimes take too much time to respond during which the explorer items on the desktop (start menu and task bar) are not responding.
It’s not like freezing, it’s different. And unfortunately the services that you mention had been disabled already.
I’ll keep this url bookmarked and watch for it for any further updates you might have.
Dude its pretty simple,its not rocket science to figure this one out,i had the same problems and i just renamed the folders to something else and it accesses it right away,to rename it use the keyboard shortcut F2 ,dont right click the folder and try renaming it that way it will freeze again.
@ webcadre
svchost.exe is crashing. You must load the svchost.exe.mdmp crashdump into debugger…
how about this, how can you solve this one??? can anyone pls help??? iam always receiving this message it always pop up on my screen.
C:\DOCUME~1\prc\LOCALS~1\Temp\WERBC.tmp.dir00\svchost.exe.mdmp
C:\DOCUME~1\prc\LOCALS~1\Temp\WERBC.tmp.dir00\appcompat.txt
i just click dont send and everythings seems back to normal but after saveral time using my pc it comes up again,
guys and gals need a little help pls….
”
End Process will only kill that specific process running. Ending Process Tree will kill that specific process, and any other process that depends on it to run. Example if I “End Process Tree” on McAfee.exe, then all other McAfee applications including McAfee.exe would be ended all at the same time.
Hope this helps :)
”
Then, I think is better to use “End Process Tree” on suspicious files in this case…
Tks again my friends, and also Tank you Raymond for your job on this blog…
You might not want disable “Background Intelligence Transfer”. I say this because if you have Windows Update automatically download windows updates for you then it will not do so if you have BITS disabled. Just a little piece of information.
006: KallAngo®,
August 16th, 2007 at 4:58 am
Hello everyone…
somebody knows the difference between “End process” and “End Process Tree” on Task manager ?¿
Tks…
End Process will only kill that specific process running. Ending Process Tree will kill that specific process, and any other process that depends on it to run. Example if I “End Process Tree” on McAfee.exe, then all other McAfee applications including McAfee.exe would be ended all at the same time.
Hope this helps :)
Also check for any file that uses tooltip in windows explorer when user moves a mouse over it. On mine, I learned CorelDraw locks up windows explorer by the tooltip when I moved my mouse over an image file and it was caused by CorelDraw’s thumbview plugin. Uninstalling CorelDraw’s thumbview plugin greatly solves the problem.
Hello everyone…
somebody knows the difference between “End process” and “End Process Tree” on Task manager ?¿
Tks…
Killing explorer.exe and restarting it (File > Run > explorer.exe in Task Manager) could also work, but I guess it doesn’t prevent the problem, only fixes it.
thanks very much
Thx again, man!!
Thanks Raymond, You’re the MAN. I’m digging this thingy right now..
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