Windows XP – Right Click takes a long time

I’ve been fighting this problem for awhile where I would right-click on a file and it would take almost a minute to get a menu.  Sometimes, the system would just lock up.

I went through a lot of Google searches over time and today I finally found the culprit thanks to this article:

http://windowsxp.mvps.org/rcdelay.htm

and a tool called

Regscanner

The best piece of advice on troubleshooting this type of behavior is to open your network settings and disable your network card.  I’m assuming most people are 100% online these days so the comment “When your network is enabled” didn’t originally catch my eye.   However, when I disabled my network connection, my right click worked fantastic.

Bingo!  The error is something to do with the network.  I used RegScanner to find any registry setting that was pointing to some obscure UNC path on the network and I actually found 3 references to a server that no longer exists on my network.

I removed those entries and the problem immediately went away.

Before you go removing certificates and dropping shell extensions (both were other ideas – and completely valid for some people), try turning off your network and running a quick test.

It worked for me.

MSN Messenger Won’t Log In

Answer Re: Windows Live Messenger V8 won’t sign in (or quit trying – no error, no nothing) Was this post helpful ?

*** FIXED *** (Well worked for me)

I found this @ http://sbpnova.spaces.live.com & http://winliveid.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!AEE1BB0D86E23AAC!222.entry
How, I resolved it:
NOTE: When working in the Registry Editor (REGEDIT), please perform only the steps as described below. Doing otherwise can result in serious damage to the Operating System. Microsoft and MSN can not be held responsible for this. 1. Shutdown messenger (right click on the icon in the tray -> Exit). Make sure it’s gone
2. Click on Start and Run and type in REGEDIT and hit Enter 3. In the registry editor, click on “HEKY_CURRENT_USER”, followed by “Software”, followed by “Microsoft”, followed by “MSNMessenger”, and followed by “Policies”. 4. Select the “Policies” key and delete the folder.
5. Close Regedit and goto “%userprofile%\Application Data\Microsoft\” (i.e. C:\Documents and Settings\YOURNAME\Application Data\Microsoft\). In here you should see a “MSN Messenger”, either rename it (“MSN Messenger-CORRUPT”, or delete it).6. Restart your machine.
I was able to sign into live messenger after that.
Hope this helps you guys!!!
Regards,

[originally from:http://forums.microsoft.com/WindowsOneCare/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=823425&SiteID=2]

Find Machine Names on local network from IP

I had an issue today where I needed to find all of the machine names on the local network along with their IP addresses.

Here is a batch file that helps do just that:

@echo off
echo > c:\network.txt IP Address NetBIOS Name
echo > c:\network.txt ============================
for /F %%a in (‘net view ^ find “\\”‘) do call :Sub %%a
goto :eof

:Sub
set name=%1
set name=%name:~2%
for /F “tokens=3 delims=: ” %%a in (‘ping %name% -n 1 ^ find /i “bytes=”‘) do set IP=%%a
echo >> c:\network.txt %name% %ip%