carotids

Window prefetches parts of files to help speed up your applications you use the most. Windows loads aspects of programs beforehand to accelerate your program execution. If windows places enough of these sections of files in the pretech folder, the system can be slowed down. The systems that I have seen this affect the most are systems with a small amount of memory. People that run (and try out) a huge number of different programs seem also to be affected. XP: Speed Up Your System - When, Where, and How to Clear the Prefetch

Most people believe sun's java is the better, safe, stronger version. However, remove the microsoft version is not easy. Anyway, here's the tutorial I always reference... It explains how to uninstall or just disable Microsoft's VM. XP: Should I uninstall or upgrade Microsoft Java Virtual Machine (JVM)?

Are you talking about the status bar? Try this... XP: Status Bar is Disabled or Disappears in Explorer The comments really get detailed if you need more help. It worked for me. carotids