26

Fix slow opening of my computer in Win Xp and delayed contents display.

If you are encountering the one of the most common problem of slow opening of my computer in windows xp and contents of my computer as a result display very lately then you will be surprised to know that your computer is not old or slow but there is simple fix to this problem.

Why Does My computer opens slowly ?

The main reason behind is the default option being checked in windows xp to search for network drives and printers every time you open my computer and there may be network drives which are being accessed when you open my computer.

How to Speed up My Computer Opening

1. Open My computer>>File Menu>>Tools>>Folder Options >>View

2. Uncheck the first checkbox which says "Automatically search for Network folders and printers"

3. You can also simply Disconnect the Map drives to solve this issue,

Go to Tools>>Disconnect the Map Drives(Network Drives) and select the network drive to disconnect.

Updated on 27 May 2008: 

As suggested by one of the reader Zamora525 another reason behind slow opening of your my computer may be due to a windows service called ‘windows image acuisitions (WIA)’ - Provides image acquisition services for scanners and cameras.

You need to stop it by the commands given below.

1. Open Start >> Run or press window+r

2. type net stop "Windows Image Acquisition (WIA)"

You can also disable the service by following the procedure given below

1. Open Start >> Run or press window+r

2. type services.msc and press enter

3. Now locate the Windows Image Acquisition (WIA) among the services and right click on it to select  properties.

Now Stop the service if it is already running by clicking the stop button and select the startup type for the service as disabled. (as shown in the image below)

stop-disable-windows-image-acquisition

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks Zamora525

Note: If still after doing these things your my computer opens slow please leave a comment here, I will help you in that case.

We hope you liked the above post, if you want more updates, get these posts via email for free, click here.

You may like to read some related articles given below.

Get free updates and new tricks delivered to your mailbox.

Enter your email address below:

26 Responses to “Fix slow opening of my computer in Win Xp and delayed contents display.”

  1. Rohit on November 11th, 2007 | 8:33 pm

    Hi Abhi

    Please also provide the snap-shots for such settings as it makes the understanding really fast.

    Nice article.
    :)

  2. coolsurf on November 12th, 2007 | 11:10 am

    it is still slow…..

  3. abhishek on November 13th, 2007 | 11:05 am

    it could be due to hp all in one printer settings…do let me knw if u have a printer connected or if ur system is on local lan.

  4. Nirmal on November 20th, 2007 | 2:35 am

    This may not be always because of network settings, are you sure this is the only reason?

  5. abhishek on November 20th, 2007 | 7:58 am

    well you are right but this idea works with charm in most of the case so why not give a try.

  6. darkshrine on November 26th, 2007 | 1:23 am

    about the fake virus, how can I execute it? everytime I do the trick the computer cannot be restore…

  7. Krrish on November 28th, 2007 | 1:06 am

    Hi Abhi,

    Thanks for these tips,and i want to share my problem like when i m opening my Laptop mt ltop found new hardware printer even i never connected with my ltop.
    please help me to resolve this prob

  8. Gary on December 5th, 2007 | 8:17 am

    Hi Abhi,
    My computer sometimes takes as much as 15 to 20 seconds to open My Computer. I tried the suggestions you had for detecting network drives and that did not work. I do have an HP2860 All In One. Could a setting or something with that printer be causing this.

    Please let me know if you have any ideas

  9. Ashfame on January 4th, 2008 | 11:07 am

    Nice trick buddy. Implemented on my desktop.

  10. PatrickHenryPDX on January 9th, 2008 | 8:32 am

    Hi, your tip appears to have solved my problem - thanks. FYI, I am on a laptop that goes back and forth from work to home. At work, everything is fine. At home, however, My Computer takes forever to display the contents, particularly if I am not connected via VPN. I used both of the fixes described above, but it appears that un-mapping the network drives was the primary cure. Thanks again.

  11. Stephen Johnson on January 21st, 2008 | 3:08 pm

    I have a end user that it takes 2 minutes to open My Computer! Connected or not to the network it is the same, I unchecked the search for folders and printers option, he uses the network drives, check for viruses, none found, removed the CD/DVD drive, still the same.
    This is on windows XP, SP2.
    Any ideas?

  12. beekaye on January 28th, 2008 | 6:30 pm

    I need to know why when I try to go to the You Tube website, explorer closes with a window that says you tube is banned, not by the administrator, guess who? I can’t get on it, can anyone help?

  13. Sushil on February 27th, 2008 | 7:24 am

    I have unchecked Automatically search for Network folders and printers” but still i facing same problem.

  14. Hashir Tasleem on March 1st, 2008 | 4:09 pm

    try to stop the Windows Image Acquisition from services and change the startup type to manual for the same service

  15. Make your my computer open faster by disconnecting the network drives - Technix Update- General Tips and Tricks, Vista Tips, Orkut Tricks, Hacking Tutorials, Windows Hacks, Firefox Tips on March 12th, 2008 | 5:00 pm

    […] I have already published one post on How to fix slow opening of my computer and delayed contents display here. […]

  16. William on March 13th, 2008 | 7:01 pm

    I tried what was suggested with no luck. When I open up my computer it looks like its looking for network drives like you say. It takes forever to load and when it finally does it no longer has those lines that use to seperate things like cd drives and hard drives. I have a fresh install and only had this problem after I did all the updates. However I’m not sure what update caused the problem. Any help would be appreciated.

  17. Zamora525 on March 15th, 2008 | 6:39 pm

    your tips are good and all but i found another way to fix mycomputer from opening up slowly

    go to control panels
    admin tools
    services
    and disable windows image acuisitions (WIA)

    to 30 days to figure but it works

  18. Eay on March 19th, 2008 | 10:57 pm

    When I double click the ‘My Computer’ icon, it opens up pretty fast but takes some time to display the info in My Computer folder (the torchligh icons appears as if it’s searching for something). While it’s doing the searching, if I click ‘my documents’, the file info in my documents folder will appear immediately. However, when I click back the ‘My computer’ folder, it’s searching again and will take sometime to display the file/disk info.

    I’ve tried disconneting the network drive as you suggested, but it didnt work … appreciate your help .. Thanks ..

  19. nayyar on April 18th, 2008 | 5:39 am

    dear my toshiba u300 is still facing the same problem i have tried all the mentioned above triks but still same problem persists……further more i have removed all the spy bots by using the bot remover software also …i didnt even install a single software on my system but sitll its slow while on the same machine i have windows vista ( dual boot ) but its working like dreams….

    any idea…. !! specially abhi please do suggest some ting…….my system is just freshly installed by my self by slip streaming…my own xp CD

  20. tata on May 26th, 2008 | 6:28 pm

    Only Zamora525’s tip worked…nothing else worked…also u need to disable ‘automatic’ function in properties for ‘windows image acuisitions (WIA)’
    otherwise it will restart on closing the window and now ‘my computer’ opens fast…like instantly….thanks Zamora525.

  21. dim on May 29th, 2008 | 11:27 am

    The second half of the Zamora tip works: go to services, stop the WIA and set it’s startup to disabled. The ‘net stop …’ command didn’t work for me ( probably stopped the service but it immediatly started itself again when i opened a new “my computer” ). Eternal thanks!

  22. Ganesh Satonkar on June 3rd, 2008 | 12:20 am

    Dear Sir,

    I am using win xp and when i connect to network files on my desktop or in my computer like pdf or open office files opens very slowly but when i disabled the network connection it opens faster. pls provide the solution

  23. abhishek on June 3rd, 2008 | 7:22 am

    @Ganesh Satonkar - when you enable your network connection your network drives enumerates them selves by connecting to the network resources.

    this is a windows issue will let you know if i found a solution for this.

  24. Zamora525 on July 14th, 2008 | 10:02 am

    Always greatful to help!

  25. Nigel on July 18th, 2008 | 2:11 am

    I wonder if this might help my problem that’s only occured in the past week or 2. Suddenly opening My Computer (where you see all your drives and space free) is slow, takes upto 5 seconds to show. On SATA/300mb’s and a Quad Core surely this shouldn’t happen at all, and if so it’d happen from the moment I installed Vista right? Not suddenly within the last few weeks.

  26. Dave Thompson on August 15th, 2008 | 5:59 am

    Worked! Thanks for the tip.

Leave a Reply

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>