When I click on "My Computer" in Microsoft XP, it takes a while, and there is an icon of a file with a moving

Question

When I click on "My Computer" in Microsoft XP, it takes a while, and there is an icon of a file with a moving flashlight. It's kind of annoying! I went to Microsoft's website and have all the latest updates for XP and Office. Any computer genius out there know the fix for this one?

Thank you so much!

Answer 1

The moving flashlight just means that the computer is looking for the files you want. It usually only happens if you have a lot of programs open which slows things down or if you have hundreds of files in the folder you are opening. Your best bet is to just get used to it.

Answer 2

Well, the base problem is that your computer is trying to read one of your drives and it is taking it a while to do so. It could be your CD or DVD drive if you have a disk in there. More than likely it is an external hard drive if you've got one. Possibly a key drive. If you don't have any of these things and your system is still giving you the flashlight, either there is a process running in the background taking up memory for your computer to display information about your system or your hard drive is starting to go bad. Many possibilities, hope this helped you out some.

Answer 3

You may have a faulting hard drive. Although this is unlikely

Check your drive space. If you are running low on drive space(below 2 MB) then it will cause yoru hard drive to run very slow and poorly.

You may also want to defrag your hard drive....to do this, go to Start, Program, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Defragmenter. This may help although it is unlikely that it will.

The best option is to reformat your hard drive..you will lose all files unless you back them up, but it is a great way to speed up your computer.

Most people will tell you it is spyware causing this problem. It could very well be, but this excuse is typically becoming an easy scapegoat for anything going wrong on a computer. Reformatting your computer may take care of all spyware issues, but deleting the partition and then reformatting is your best and safest option to remove all files. Deleting a partition is too lengthy to describe on here.

Good luck!

Answer 4

When you open My Computer, Windows automatically searches for network folders and printers. This feature is turned on by default, even when you are not part of a network. It takes a moment to search for a network but you notice a lag in time. To disable this feature.

1. Open My Computer.
2. On the menu bar, click Tools > Folder Options
3. Choose the "General" tab and
4. Under "Files and Folders," uncheck the entry "Automatically Search for Nework Folders and Printers."
5. Click [Apply] > [O.K.]

Answer 5

I dont' know if it is fixable. Mine does the same thing. You can hit F5 before the microsoft icon comes up and change your settings, but the more you have on your computer, the longer it takes for it to come on. You can get really high speed and that might fix the problem.

Answer 6

Sometimes if you have a lot of programmes installed or software downloaded it takes a while to start up. Also check that your anti virus scan isn't updating or doing a virus scan as it might be set to automatically scan. Ttry doing a disk cleanup, defrag and anything oulse that may speed your computer up. Delete unused programmes/ applications that you no longer use.

Answer 7

The flashlight means it's looking for something. You need to run a virus scan. Try going to www.trendmicro.com. They offer free anti-virus and anti-spyware scans.

Answer 8

sounds like you need more RAM to me. The computer is running slowly due to lack of memory.....or you can always F-DISK whatever works for you..