PE7 takes 6 minutes to load

Question

I have just installed PE 7 and when I open a project the screen is frozen for five to six minutes before I can start working. Is this because I have a dual head video card? Matrox P650 PCLe128
If I set the screen resolution at 800x600 it will open a project straight away. But set higher, and I usually have it set at 1280 x 1024 there is a long delay while it is frozen for at least five minutes.
Have Athlon 3200 and 2g of Ram. C drive is 250 Gb with 200 of free space. D drive on which I save video is 250GB with 184 of free space.
Do I just have to wait 5 minutes, or is there somthing I can do to correct it? Have gone through all steps recommended in Adobe TechNote kb404997 but no joy. Appreciate any help yopu can give. Brian

Answer 1

Dear Steve, Chuck and Bill thank you ever so much for taking the time to reply to my troubles. Your time and expertise is much appreciated.
Perhaps I should give you a few more details of my computer, then what I have done.
Computer is 3 years old. Athlon 3200 and 2 g of Ram. 4 hard drives. Matrox P650 video card with dual heads. Two 19 inch CRT monitors.
A month ago I had trouble with Windows opening. My IT expert said the C drive may be faulty, replaced it with new 250g Sata drive ( 204 free space) and transferred my programs over to it.
My drives for storing data 2 x 250g Sata drives. Were Raid linked so as to be mirror drives. These were separated into two separate drives D ( 204 free space) and H (208 free) when new C drive put in. Had another 180g older drive in (not sata) which was partitioned into E for a scratch disk, and G as a spare to back up some photos on.
I always did disk clean up, scanned for virus and spyware each week and defraged all drives each month.
After encountering trouble when starting to use PE7 I followed Adobe Tech note kb404997
Set up a new user with only, PE7, My Computer, and Recycle Bin icons on desk top.
Still no joy in loading a project, had to wait 5 minutes to open a new project, or once I had downloaded 4 minutes of video from camera, it also took 5 minutes to open that existing project. Task Manager showed that PE7 Not Responding. CPU usage ranged from 50% to 100% and PF usage 500 to 809mb All that time the little red light on top of the computer was blinking as if trying to work and find something.
Took computer down to my technician. He could not see why it took so long to open a new or small existing project. He installed the latest driver for the Matrox card.
No difference. He then installed a new ATI RX2400PRO card and driver with dual heads. No difference. Set scratch disk to E drive. No difference. Put the Matrox card back in.
When I got home I made the screen resolution very small 800 x 600 New project or existing project opened straight away. Changed the resolution back to 1280 x 1024
Project opened immediately not frozen - but only opened in the top left two thirds of the screen! When I grabbed the bottom corner and pulled it out towards full screen, it got half way out then everything froze for 5 minutes! Next time I opened it, it displayed full screen, but was frozen for 5 minutes!
Followed your suggestions and did another full disk cleanup, virus scan and spyware, and disk defrag. C needed doing, D & H were not bad. G took ages to defrag several hours. Uninstalled PE7 and preferences again I had uninstalled and reinstalled it 4 times previously and then scanned everything again before re-installing. Noticed on disk clean up of C drive that there were still some items on it. Web client/Publisher Tempory files 32KB and Compress old files 55KB Does that matter?
Steve. Couldnt see any other processes running in Task Manager. Sorry I didnt know where to look for too many files in browsers web page cache.
Noticed when I opened the scratch disk (E) there were some PE7 files on it. Should they be there? Is that normal?
Even after deleting all files from G drive it took over an hour to defrag! Disconnected G/E Drive, but no difference.
Bill, It looks like you know some good things to check. But beyond me, so I will refer your suggestions on to my IT man. But many thanks.
Went to open my last project to see if I could turn the thumbnails previews off, as you suggested. But the name of the project was not on the open project list. Found it by going to the D drive where I had saved it. Another thing, after the project was open and working, I went to File- Open Project, and clicked on another project. It was frozen!
Sorry, looked, but could not find where to turn the Thumbnail Previews off in timeline/Sceneline, Project panel and the Organiser.
One other thing I have noticed, though it may have nothing to do with opening a PE7 project. When opening Photoshop CS3 I first of all get the message, The folder specified for Tempory files is not available. The default folder will be used. Would this affect PE7?
Is it good practice to save a project to a drive other than C? Should scratch disk be set to yet another drive?
Steve and Chuck. I Purchased PE1 when it first came out, also your book, PE2 In A Snap. But did not get into the programme as I had to go back to Papua New Guinea to help with major urgent repairs to Church Regional Office building. Now I am ready to put all my old PNG footage on to DVD Is your book still useful for PE7, or are you bringing out a new edition?
Thanks again for all of your help.
Brian