I recently upgraded an older computer from Windows ME to XP pro. I have
problems with the desktop now. Right clicking in the desktop locks up the
computer for a few minutes. I do not get the standard menu, just the hour
glass sits there. The screen eventually goes black and then refreshes. I
can still make changes to the desktop if I go through the control panel. Did
I miss some setting during the upgrade?

In news:3318B3D8-D3B5-470A-8C37-98EB7EFC041C@microsoft.com,
Bob E <Bob E@discussions.microsoft.com> had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

> I recently upgraded an older computer from Windows ME to XP pro. I
> have problems with the desktop now. Right clicking in the desktop
> locks up the computer for a few minutes. I do not get the standard
> menu, just the hour glass sits there. The screen eventually goes
> black and then refreshes. I can still make changes to the desktop if
> I go through the control panel. Did I miss some setting during the
> upgrade?

What are the stats of the PC in question? How much RAM? CPU speed? (Those
would be the two important ones.) An idea for you is to consider (if you
have enough RAM) taking the desktop explorer process and making it run by
itself. It does use an additional 8 MB (average or so) megs of RAM but it
often speeds up things like that and folder population. It's not worth
running XP on anything less than, say, 800 to 1000 MHz and 256+ MB of RAM.
I'd really, for most home users, recommend at least a fairly modern (say an
AMD 1800 or Intel P4 2.0 GHz) CPU with a minimal of 512 MB of RAM. You can
get away with less (I'd not recommend going below the first set mentioned)
if you want but it will run slow.

One other area that you should look into - you mentioned upgrading - would
be checking to see if some of the applications you have running in real time
are needing to be updated to operate better under XP. You can actually check
them one by one if you'd like or you can just update the major ones.

--
Galen - MS MVP - Windows (Shell/User & IE)
http://dts-l.org/

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My thoughts:

Make sure the Active Desktop is turned off. That causes no end of grief.
(If you can't get at it by right-clicking, use the Contrrol Panel
Display-item.)

Other than that, I wonder if the display driver might not be quite the right
one for your card? One way to test that would be to restart in Safe Mode and
see if the problem persists.