I have windows XP prof on a laptop with 17GB. I am using about 14GB of it. I am NOT able to delete or copy anything in Windows Explorer (not even right mouse . It just hangs (hour glass);eventually the screen goes blank for a few seconds. Why? Virus? Help
by 
Shirley Croce
ANSWERS: 5
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You probably don't have enough swap file space. Clear up the hard disk. If this doesn't help google swap file.
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There are too many possibilities for me to tell you without looking at your computer... but I will recommend you first: # Defragment your hard drive. # Defragment your hard drive again. # Defragment your hard drive once more for good measure.
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Also, operating systems require overhead to run. Windows XP pro and new operating systems especially require a lot of overhead. It is possible the 3GB that seem "free" are being used by the OS. Try getting a larger hard drive. For XP pro, I suggest at least 40GB
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I will hazard a guess that with the 17GB drive you likely have an anemic amount of RAM as well. Running less than 512 MB of RAM under WinXP will flog the hell out of your hard drive due to the extensive use of virtual memory. I had a friend try XP on only 192 MB of RAM and it was... ridiculous. It hung frequently. Sometimes stalled, sometimes worse. If a system hangs long enough waiting, odd things always happen.
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SOLUTION: I was able to find a link to www.helpwithwondows.com/techfiles/explorer-crashes.html it had a document called Troubleshooting Windows Explorer Errors that led me to a site that had a free download of ShellExView that enabled me to solve my problem. I had downloaded a piece of software that messed up my system. Hope this may help somebody else with a similar problem.
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