Windows 7 - explorer.exe NotifyChangeDirectory

Question

Windows 7 - explorer.exe NotifyChangeDirectory
<Original title : explorer.exe NotifyChangeDirectory operation now taking long time>
I am running windows 7 home premium.
I have an application that programatically downloads files from a website and has been running sucessfully with no
performance issues until recently when each individual file download time blew out to approximatle 10 seconds each.
The same application running on another PC runs OK with each file taking about 1 second to download.
I ran procmon and have narrowed this down to explorer.exe performing a NotifyChangeDirectory operation with
result=SUCCESS and detail = Filter: FILE_NOTIFY_CHANGE_FILE_NAME, FILE_NOTIFY_CHANGE_ATTRIBUTES,
FILE_NOTIFY_CHANGE_LAST_WRITE and showing a duration of arround 10 seconds each time it operates on the path where the path value is for the parent directory of the subdirectory where the downloaded files have been written by the application.
I think the cause of this change in behavior may be related to having unsucesfully tried to download IE 11 which
did not install to completion.  Could this download have modified the behaviour of explorer.exe?
If so, how can I roll back to the previous configuration of explorer.exe?
I have subsequently attempted to use windows update to install the pre-reqs listed on the MS support site for IE11 but the windows update service is broken, showing it is started in services, but reporting that it is not when I attempt to select update.
I have tried several suggestions involving netstart frm cmd window that I have found by google search, but non of these resolve the problem.

Answer 1

Yolanda,  I have also followed the manual steps.  the steps work Ok until
Reregister the BITS files and the Windows Update files. To do this, at a command prompt, type the following commands.
Make sure that you press Enter after you type each command.
o    regsvr32.exe atl.dll
o    regsvr32.exe urlmon.dll
o    regsvr32.exe mshtml.dll
o    regsvr32.exe shdocvw.dll
o    regsvr32.exe browseui.dll
o    regsvr32.exe jscript.dll
o    regsvr32.exe vbscript.dll
o    regsvr32.exe scrrun.dll
o    regsvr32.exe msxml.dll
o    regsvr32.exe msxml3.dll
o    regsvr32.exe msxml6.dll
o    regsvr32.exe actxprxy.dll
o    regsvr32.exe softpub.dll
o    regsvr32.exe wintrust.dll
o    regsvr32.exe dssenh.dll
o    regsvr32.exe rsaenh.dll
o    regsvr32.exe gpkcsp.dll
o    regsvr32.exe sccbase.dll
o    regsvr32.exe slbcsp.dll
o    regsvr32.exe cryptdlg.dll
o    regsvr32.exe oleaut32.dll
o    regsvr32.exe ole32.dll
o    regsvr32.exe shell32.dll
o    regsvr32.exe initpki.dll
o    regsvr32.exe wuapi.dll
o    regsvr32.exe wuaueng.dll
o    regsvr32.exe wuaueng1.dll
o    regsvr32.exe wucltui.dll
o    regsvr32.exe wups.dll
o    regsvr32.exe wups2.dll
o    regsvr32.exe wuweb.dll
o    regsvr32.exe qmgr.dll
o    regsvr32.exe qmgrprxy.dll
o    regsvr32.exe wucltux.dll
o    regsvr32.exe muweb.dll
o    regsvr32.exe wuwebv.dll
A number of these return a dialogue window showing the module failed to load:
the module muweb.dll failed to load
the module slbcsp.dll failed to load
the module wuaueng1.dll failed to load
the module wucltui.dll failed to load
the module initpki.dll failed to load
the module msxml.dll failed to load
the module wuaueng1.dll failed to load
the module sccbase.dll failed to load
the module gpccsp.dll failed to load
others showed entry-point not found errors:
the module muweb.dll was loaded but the entry point DIIRegisterServer was not found.
make sure shdocvw.dll is a valid DLL or OCX file and try again.
the module qmgr.dll was loaded but the entry point DIIRegisterServer was not found.
make sure qmgr.dll is a valid DLL or OCX file and try again.
the module browseui.dll was loaded but the entry point DIIRegisterServer was not found.
make sure browse.dll is a valid DLL or OCX file and try again.
the module mshtml.dll was loaded but the entry point DIIRegisterServer was not found.
make sure mshtml.dll is a valid DLL or OCX file and try again.
The documentation of my efforts on this can be seen in my post on
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-performance/windows-7-explorerexe-notifychangedirectory/3e13b5e8-bd0e-4738-ba2c-7f6491c889ad
The person responding there ran out of ideas and suggested I post here.
I can copy and paste everything I posted there if you are unable to access it.  Please let me know if you would like me to do that.
My next idea was  to find a friend who has the same version of windows 7 that I have and copy all of the DLLs listed in the fix above from their windows\system32 folder and try the manual steps again.  Do you think that is worth trying?