The Tenuous Link

My laptop, which should have been the fastest PC I've ever used, had an odd problem: the context menu (right click menu) in (Windows XP) Windows Explorer would sometimes take about 10 seconds to appear. That's very slow, but actually feels like *forever* while you sit looking at the screen waiting for it.

It took me a little while to work out that the delay only happened when the machine was plugged in to a network that was not my home network. Long story short: delete registry references to applications on the network that might be trying to insert themselves in the right click menu. Regscanner is a nice free tool to help you do that. Shexview looks good for managing shell extensions, but it didn't help me solve this problem.

The guilty application: dvr-edit. This app doesn't have an installer, you just run it. I ran it from a network share once, and it tried to be helpful by inserting a registry key to put it in the right click menu. I can't remember if it asked my permission, but it certainly didn't mention anything about making my computer 1000x slower.

Random fact that I learned trying to fix this: a normal (left) click on any item in Windows Explorer actually builds the context menu and selects the first item in it.

OK, yes I'm being sensationalist. Only right-clicks in Windows Explorer were 1000x slower, but remember that each one took *forever*, so it wasted a lot of my time!

Please Google for dire warnings about deleting registry keys before doing anything I mentioned above.