File Explorer slow and Start menu icons not highlighting after update

Sad to say, it's doing it again

Anyone any other ideas?

Hi,

These shadow copies are made by an application you need to identify. I suggest you to disable all non microsoft auto-run applications.
I see you have Sql on your machine ! disable it from auto-starting.
Disable also Hyper-v.

Restart your computer and see ...

delete these shadow copies using the procedure I gave earlier...

Do you have any ideas what runs shadow copies? I have SQL Server, but have had it since I first set up the machine, and it's never done this before. I removed Hyper-V completely over a week ago, and have deleted all folders related to it, so that can't be it.

Anything else you can suggest? Here are all the programs I have installed. Can you see anything that looks suspicious?

Thanks again.

Run msconfig and uncheck all non Microsoft services...

Thanks Ed, I have that running, but am not sure what I'm looking for! There's so much in there, and it's changing so fast, how do I work out what is using VSS.

Thanks for the reply. If you could give any more info it would be great.

Thanks for the link Ed, I had already read it. Trouble is, I'm not really sure what I'm doing here. I'm way over my head in all of this. I just want a machine that responds!

Anyway, I had a look at Process Explorer, but couldn't see anything that looked like it might be the culprit. The processes at the top of the list (when sorted by CPU usage) changed the whole time, not really indicating any one process as the cause.

The thing that puzzles me is that the main problem only seems to happen when I use File Explorer, the machine is generally OK apart from that. Not always, but pretty much. However, whenever I try to navigate the file system with File Explorer, the CPU usage goes sky high and File Explorer responds really slowly. If I navigate the file system from an "Open File" dialog box from an application (like Notepad or whatever), I can usually navigate without problems. No idea what that means.

Anyway, while navigating with File Explorer, I kept an eye on During that time, I kept an eye on the CPU usage in Process Explorer, but couldn't see any one process dominating it.

I started Windows Performance Monitor, then did some double-clicking in File Explorer and saved the system information. Maybe if someone could take a look, it might shed some light on what's going on here. You can grab a copy here.

I don't know if you can suggest anything else. I'd love to be able to fix this, but I really don't know what I'm doing here.

Thanks again to everyone for all the help.

Now that you precise that the issue is mainly related to File Explorer, I can tell you Yes. Your Explorer causes CPU to spike ! and if you take a look at the call stacks in WPA, you can see that QTTabBar is involved.

Disable or uninstall QTTabBar plugin and test.

Hi zinou, thanks for the speedy response.

I tried uninstalling QTTabBar, but it didn't make any difference. I must be honest and say I didn't expect it to, as I've had that plug-in installed ever since I set up the machine 18 months ago (it's one of my must-have tools for any machine), and have never seen this problem until recently. I haven't updated the plug-in either, so it's not like that has changed.

Also, it's worth pointing out that although the problem is most noticeable when using File Explorer, I do see it at other times. For example, I just hit the Reply button to an email, and there was a noticeable delay after the window appeared, but before I could type. Similarly, when I use TortoiseMerge, the window appears, but can be blank for up to 15 seconds before the contents appear. This was almost instant until a couple of weeks ago.

Don't know where this leaves me. Any further ideas? Thanks again.