Frozen taskbar - not locked

[Albert A Zwikstra]

When I start Windows XP the taskbar and Start button remain frozen for
several minutes. When I place the mouse pointer on the bar it shows a
hourglass. My ADSL modem shows lots of activity.

After a few minutes there is some hard drive activity and all is as it
should be - but zone alarm does not load until the taskbar is unfrozen. I
have done the usual virus and ad-ware scans and they are negative (although
I did have the W32/raleka.worm and it has been removed) . I suspect that a
program is running in the background which freezes the taskbar and Start
button. While the taskbar is frozen I can access my programs except for
Internet Explorer - it will not respond . I am using WP SP 1 with all the
up-dates.

Any quick fixes or suggestions (short of disabling services and programs and
then activating each one at a time).

Albert

 

[Kelly]

Hi Albert,

This is a very common issue for many users. There isn't a per se' quick
universal fix all for this. Start by checking: Start/Run/Msconfig/Startup
and:

Run the Task Manager, go to View/Select Columns, and turn on the following
columns: "I/O Read Bytes" and "I/O Write Bytes." This will give you details
as to which process is accessing the disk.