winXP taskbar freezes

[KFCrispy]

ahtlon xp+ 1900 (1.6 ghz)
1.0 gig ddr sdram
winXP Pro SP1

the taskbar freezes less than a second after the Windows interface shows up, and after a long time, the floppy drive (A:\) is checked and then the taskbar works normally. this only happened recently, and i haven't really messed with the computer since a few months ago.

while the taskbar is frozen, i can quickly access windows explorer folders from the desktop as well as Task Manager, but some programs such as the windows dial-up program and my antivirus task-icon do not load until the taskbar unfreezes.

i thought it was my antivirus program (because of the floppy drive check), but i've disabled it and gotten the same results... please help!

 

[cooljoe22]

I'm also trying to fix this very same problem on a client's system.

Here's the system specs:

P4 2.4c
ABIT IS7
Crucial 1024GB DDR
XP Pro w/ SP1

A few weeks ago, this computer worked great. But, now...it'll boot into Windows just fine, but a few seconds after it shows the Desktop and Taskbar, the mouse and keyboard will work fine, but if i try run a program it'll just sit there, and do nothing. When I open Windows Explorer, it'll show a searching flashlight instead of the hard drives and CD-ROMs.

But, it does this all within the first two minutes after Windows starts. Then after that, the drives in the Windows Explorer menu will appear and programs will run correctly and everything seems to work correctly. And after that two minute period, Norton Anvi-Virus and Firewall icons will finally appear in the taskbar.

Safe Mode works correctly

I've tried going in to MSCONFIG and disabiling all startup items. This did not fix the problem. So, I'm thinking it has something to do with the network. He had two mapped network drives that were mapped over the network from his other computer, but I deleted them in order to test and see if they were causing the problem, but that wasn't the case.

 

[KFCrispy]

hey cooljoe22, i've discovered what froze up my Taskbar, although the freeze-up isn't exactly the same. my Windows Explorer still works fine as the taskbar is frozen, but the problem is related to networking. whenever it is cross-wired with my Win2000 machine, even if the 2000 computer is not on, my computer's taskbar has the freeze problem. winxpnews.com had a thing about disabling QoS if XP to 98 networking was slow, but that does not help my case.