WinXP slowing down

[kenboyles72]

ok, when i right-click on any file, it takes like 10 secs or so for the menu to pop up, also takes that long for notepad, ms word, excel, and paint to open only if i double click on the associating file. if i open these programs directly by start menu, there's not much hesitation. thought it might of been spyware or other crap. ran tests with spybot, adaware, ms spyware, and avg. no nasties found. hdd not fragged, running O&O defrag set to auto, so it keeps it pretty well defragged. have'nt done a sys restore yet, thought there might of been something simple that could have been first. i'll see what some of you guys say about it first before i restore it.

[wera]

You may have to do a clean install that is the onley thing i can think of.

[Martoch]

Forget the clean install...that's your last option.
Did you just notice this or has it been happening for a while? What are your system specs? How long have you had this computer? How many startup items are running in your process list/can you eliminate them? Have you tried ending any processes to see if the slowness still occurs? How's the system run in safe mode?