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New 64-bit Windows XP machine running slow

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
in General Chat
Today I got a new computer at work. It has a Core 2 Duo 3 GHz processor and 4 GB of RAM, with Windows XP 64-bit.

The problem is anything I do in explorer (browse folders, start menu, desktop, etc) is super slow. There is about a 3/4 second delay after I click on anything, and the mouse takes the same amount of time to appear. It's weird because if I keep a program in the foreground (e.g. Firefox or Excel) the program itself runs perfectly well. But if I try and select a different program from the taskbar or leave the current program, I get this delay again.

I've never used 64-bit Windows before so I don't know if this could be an OS-specific issue. The computers come pre-installed by our IT department. I can ask them about it, but I was wondering if anyone has any idea what might be causing this weird problem? If it was a home machine I'd mess around with drivers etc, but I don't want to change too much on a work machine.

p.s. I also can't connect to the network printers due to some kind of driver problem - will I need 64-bit specific drivers?

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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Just an update.

    I have narrowed the problem down to Winword.exe. It seems when Winword.exe (and other applications, but the main culprit is Word) is running, it runs as a 32-bit process. I don't know if this is a problem with the Office installation or a problem with Windows x64 running 32-bit programs properly.

    I previously had 32-bit Firefox installed, which was unaffected by the Winword.exe problem. I now installed Firefox 64-bit, which IS slowed down when Winword.exe *32 is running. It seems that only 64-bit processes are affected.

    Any ideas?
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    XP 64 is generally regarded as god awful, is there anyway you could stick vista business on there? It deals with 64 bit much nicer. Failing that, I'm not sure unfortunately. Press ctrl-alt-delete and bring up task manager, view performance and then watch the cpu graph when you do something. Then you can narrow it down to CPU / network / hard disk or whatever.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Check

    Check your computer or viruses and spywares.. These are culprits for a slowing down your computer.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    jakehussie wrote: »
    Check your computer or viruses and spywares.. These are culprits for a slowing down your computer.

    Do you really think that his PC is riddled with the above on the same day as getting it? Somehow, I don't think so.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    ShyBoy wrote: »
    XP 64 is generally regarded as god awful, is there anyway you could stick vista business on there? It deals with 64 bit much nicer. Failing that, I'm not sure unfortunately. Press ctrl-alt-delete and bring up task manager, view performance and then watch the cpu graph when you do something. Then you can narrow it down to CPU / network / hard disk or whatever.
    Unfortunately I can't change the OS, as they aren't planning on upgrading any time soon. I've checked in task manager, and can't see any obviouos problems. The computer is actually a dual boot with Fedora, and funnily enough that works perfectly. First time I've used Linux too.
    Teagan wrote: »
    Do you really think that his PC is riddled with the above on the same day as getting it? Somehow, I don't think so.
    I'd be slightly worried if that was the case! For some reason a lot of people jump on viruses and spyware as the most likely culprit of any problem, regardless of what it is.
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