File "Save As" operations temporarily hanging

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jason M. Keeler
  • Start date Start date
J

Jason M. Keeler

I've got a problem here that I can't figure out. Sometime within the
last month, some application or update has caused my computer to
temporarily hang upon "Save As" operations within a variety of
applications (i.e. Word, Excel, Winzip).

Upon selecting "Save As" the application sits there in a frozen state
while the CPU jumps to near 100% for a good 10-15 seconds upon which
the save dialog pops up and everything is back to normal. This only
happens the first time -- successive saves for new/existing documents
work fine. If I exit the application and re-select "Save As", the
same thing happens again.

This computer (win2k) is networked only to the Internet via router and
one wireless notebook. The wireless has a share on this computer but
there are no mapped drives going from this computer. This
configuration has not changed in months -- in fact, there haven't been
any changes to the system at all. My thinking is possibly a Windows
update, Zone Alarm/AVG Update (I've tried disabling but no luck) has
caused this to happen. I'd like to know if there is any update I can
re-run which may resolve this.

Going forward, my only options appear to be a) live with it b)
re-format or c) wait for the next major Win2k update (if this will
happen).

Any suggestions are highly appreciated here.

Jason
 
Upon selecting "Save As" the application sits there in a frozen state
while the CPU jumps to near 100% for a good 10-15 seconds upon which
the save dialog pops up and everything is back to normal. This only
happens the first time -- successive saves for new/existing documents
work fine. If I exit the application and re-select "Save As", the
same thing happens again.
Click to expand...

This happens because Windows re-caches all drives when you drop down a
drive combo box (like the one on top of the Save As). Most probable causes
are:

* slow CD-ROMs
* low-speed or low-ping mapped net drives
* disabled or low cache (cache gets resized with memory so low physical
memory can add to this)
* close-to-limit page file, memory or registry limit might add to this as
registry mount points and shell objects get swapped to disk.

Make sure Removable Storage is running and all caching are enabled.
Manually go enable caching (for CD-ROMs).

Also google for settings to re-connect mapped drives on system start-up.
It will take longer to start but drives will be enabled immediately. I know
you said there are no mapped drives. Just for completion.

There are some hot tips going around about disabling Scheduled Tasks
search on remote computers, try that too.

Try restarting or stopping (one at a time) services for Computer Browser,
Workstation, etc. Some of these will refresh shares looking for things that
mount onto the shell tree (printers, folders, sync objects, offline
files...). Actually, stop everything that allows stopping and write down
improvements.

Can't think of anything else right now.
Going forward, my only options appear to be a) live with it b)
re-format or c) wait for the next major Win2k update (if this will
happen).
Click to expand...

a) There is such a possibility ...
b) There is no guarantee that once the configuration is re-built this will
not start happening again. Actually, it's most likely to.
c) It has nothing to do with the OS but configuration. W2k is fine, mine
doesn't do that.
 
Ndi said:
This happens because Windows re-caches all drives when you drop down a
drive combo box (like the one on top of the Save As). Most probable causes
are:

* slow CD-ROMs
* low-speed or low-ping mapped net drives
* disabled or low cache (cache gets resized with memory so low physical
memory can add to this)
* close-to-limit page file, memory or registry limit might add to this as
registry mount points and shell objects get swapped to disk.

Make sure Removable Storage is running and all caching are enabled.
Manually go enable caching (for CD-ROMs).

Also google for settings to re-connect mapped drives on system start-up.
It will take longer to start but drives will be enabled immediately. I know
you said there are no mapped drives. Just for completion.

There are some hot tips going around about disabling Scheduled Tasks
search on remote computers, try that too.

Try restarting or stopping (one at a time) services for Computer Browser,
Workstation, etc. Some of these will refresh shares looking for things that
mount onto the shell tree (printers, folders, sync objects, offline
files...). Actually, stop everything that allows stopping and write down
improvements.

Can't think of anything else right now.


a) There is such a possibility ...
b) There is no guarantee that once the configuration is re-built this will
not start happening again. Actually, it's most likely to.
c) It has nothing to do with the OS but configuration. W2k is fine, mine
doesn't do that.
Click to expand...

Thanks Andrei

Believe it or not, a second defrag actually took care of the problem.
I tried this originally but with no luck. Go figure.

Jason
 
Believe it or not, a second defrag actually took care of the problem.
I tried this originally but with no luck. Go figure.
Click to expand...

I will :)

Defragmentation does not affect registry or drive cache unless you don't
have enough cache to begin with. As in there isn't enough memory to keep all
needed things cached. Simple, transparent things like clearing the event log
before a fragmentation can have a huge impact on the fragmentation.

BTW, this remind me: You might want to clear the event log from time to
time, otherwise the darn thing get as fragmented as 1000 parts on the disk,
keeping some other system files fragmented as well (like registry!). Also,
system services logs (like scheduler) are also non-defraggable. Believe it
or not, I got rid of almost 2000 fragments on the drive by clearing all
events, stopping all stoppable services and then going for a defrag.

Why these don't get moved is beyond me.
 
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