Big slowdown on "My Computer" and Winrar

A couple of days ago I was installing software in order to plug a digital camera to my PC. Ever since then I have insane slowdown with Winrar and opening My Computer. Winrar will take as much as 5 minutes to open something, and My Computer has that flashlight thingy searching for icons for up to 5 minutes before I can see anything… Sometimes the desktop just locks up and I have to ctrl + alt delete and remove explorer.exe then run explorer.exe to get back in business. I did uninstall the software afterwards thinking that was the reason, apparently it wasn't. :S What in the world is wrong??

Ligisttomten, Question - do you have the same issue of your camera is plugged in and turned on? I ask because it seems as if the camera software/drive might be causing Windows to search for the camera when opening up My Computer. Also, if you can reply with more details about your camera (make/model) - this might help in providing additional support. - John

The problems started immediately after installing the software so I panicked and uninstalled what I could in hopes of fixing it, needless to say it didn't. The software I installed is from the Canon Digital Video Solution Disk version 14.0 for windows. It includes Zoombrowser EX 5.0, PhotoRecord 2.1, Photostitch 3.1, DV Twain Driver 6.5, DV WIA Driver for Windows Me 6.3. I tried plugging in the camera but it did nothing, still same problem.

Ligisttomten,

Based on your user profile, you're running Windows XP. My guess is that what screwed things up is that you installed drivers / software designed for Windows ME - which has a COMPLETELY different driver architecture that Windows XP. I'm guessing that the your camera pre-dates Windows XP, which is WHY you had a driver disk for Windows ME.

You need to get onto canon's website:


http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controll…ownloadIndexAct

Select your camera model from this list (or go to a different page if this is the wrong catagory). From there, you need to download the XP drivers for your camera and install them. I would throw away the CD that came with your camera as it is clearly VERY old and won't work with XP or higher.

- Hope this helps.

- John

Is there a way to somehow remove those drivers? Thanks for the help.

Ligisttomten, You can open "Control Panel", "Add/Remove Programs" then scroll through this list until you find the canon stuff. The other option is to click on "Start". "All Programs" search for a Canon group and see if there's an Uninstall or Remove ICON in this menu. If you're unable to do either, I would log onto Canon's support site and see if they have a post about removing old drivers. - John Hook

Well I solved it by formating and re-installing Windows, worth it though as it was getting too messy either way, I'll try play it smarter this time. Thanks for your help though, John Hook.