Windows Explorer Slow

I had a problem with Windows Explorer working Extremely Slow.  When I'd first start up my computer, it was slow, but wasn't too bad.  However, after accessing a few folders or running windows for over 1/2 hour, Windows Explorer would slow down dramatically.  I tried finding solutions for the problem.  The Microsoft web site informed users that the problem was that the folders contained too much information.  I then burned most of my files to CD and cleared my computer, but still had the problem.  After an exhaustive search I found a post by Micky Dee with a solution that actually worked.  It was simple, quick, and extremely effective.  I have copied it below in case the original is taken off the Internet.  The original post can be found here:  Windows 98 Explorer Extremely Slow

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Edit the My Documents folder desktop.ini file.  There is a file called "desktop.ini" right in your "my documents" folder.  You can't see it in explorer because it has the attributes hidden and system.  WINDOWS makes this special file disappear because they do not want you to see it!  (even if you have windows set to show hidden files!)  Windows Explorer will not show these files, but windows file Find will.

To see these files Open My Computer and right click on your C: Drive and select FIND.
Enter desktop.ini and hit Enter.
You will see several desktop.ini files. Look for the one located in your "My Documents" folder.
It should open with your default text editor if you double click on it.

----- listing starts below ----------------
  
[.ShellClassInfo]
CLSID2={450d8fba-ad25-11d0-98a8-0800361b1103}

450D8FBA-AD25-11D0-98A8-0800361B1103 **

InfoTip=Stores your documents, graphics, and other files.

------listing ends above ------------------

** This is the CLSID for the My Documents folder!
The following is copied form other posts on this subject
  

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Make a new file called "desktop.ini" in another folder. Create it with notepad and leave the whole file empty! If you try to copy this new file into My Documents you will be asked if you would like to replace the old desktop.ini! You should answer with "yes". Now watch Explorer sorting things out: after a few moments the special folder icon of My Documents is gone and the My Documents folder behaves as every other folder...lightning fast! During reboot of windows the system recognizes the faulty desktop.ini and rewrites the original desktop.ini. If you don't want your hotfix gone, just make the file read-only before copying it into My Documents.

Advantages of this fix:
- Did I mention the improved speed???? My Documents should open as fast as any other folder.
- My Documents has not lost it's specialty! If you use TweakUI you will see, that your folder is still registered as your My Documents special folder!
  
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I also found the special icon. The icon is actually encoded in the following file C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\MYDOCS.DLL -If you want to create a shortcut on your desktop to the My Documents folder with the special icon after you have successfully copied the new, blank desktop.ini file into the My Documents folder and marked it as hidden and read-only you can first try right clicking on the desktop and then pointing to "new" and then selecting "My Documents folder on desktop".  Some people have reported that after messing with the attributes of the desktop.ini file in My Documents that the "My Documents folder on desktop" selection becomes unavailable under the "new" menu, in that case just create a new shortcut like you would to point to any other normal folder and put it on the desktop, then by right clicking the new shortcut bring up the properties and select change icon and browse to this file: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\MYDOCS.DLL (the best way to avoid this is by removing the My Documents folder from the desktop before you change the desktop.ini file! as long as you remove it before you change the desktop.ini file, the choice to put it back on the desktop from the "new" menu in properties will remain) I have not found a way to get Windows Explorer to put the special icon with the My Documents folder when you browse through Windows Explorer, instead it just looks like a plain folder, however, it still works and acts like the special folder it is supposed to be, this is minor compared to the performance gain form making the change. ...........

........note: If you have Microangelo or some other icon software you can extract an icon form the MYDOCS.DLL and copy it into your My Documents folder and set it to be hidden. In that case you will have to include the following in your new desktop.ini file before you copy it into your My Documents folder.  xxxx is the name of your icon.
[.ShellClassInfo]
IconFile=xxxx.ico
IconIndex=0
ConfirmFileOp=0
OriginalIcon=%

.......OK I found the above also applies to your Favorites Folder.  In addition to the problem above if you have too many shortcuts and or folders in your Favorites folder, options will start to disappear from the content menu when you right click on the folder.  The above solution should take care of the Slow explorer problem. If for some reason the fix does not take you can try deletion the following form you registry.
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mydocs\ShellNew]
"Command"="rundll32 mydocs.dll,RestoreMyDocsFolder"

Micky Dee
Re: Windows 98 Explorer Extremely Slow
Posted At 23:26:28 10/14/2002

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I have also found the desktop.ini file in other folders and repeated this with each folder, by copying it from My Documents and pasting it into the other folders.  This has worked incredibly well.