Explorer.exe and other Microsoft processes hang requiring ..

My laptop has been bullet proof since I bought it last may (Toshiba Tecra
M5, XP Pro, Core Duo 2.0, 2GB DRAM2-667). Because it was going so well I
resisted the nagging XP updates for a long time. However the experience
of others suggested there was nothing to worry about and so I have applied
updates for the last 4 or 5 months.

For a while that went fine but now I frequently get behaviour out of OS or
Office 2003 processes that cause the whole system to jam with high CPU utilisation,
progressively causing other applications to hang until I just give up and
reboot. This can happen twice or more a day depending on what I do.

I will try and briefly describe issues I believe are relavant to this but
am happy to expand if anyone has the time to respond. (I have searched on
this issue extensively however never found a solution that works for me)


* I have scanned for Spyware and viruses but nothing is found. I have had
the occasional minor SpyWare incident but these have always been eradicated
with SpyBot.

* Often the explorer.exe process end up siting on 50%cpu and will not come
down from this no matter how long I leave it.

* Other processes to exhibit this behaviour can be Outlook (2003), IExplore,
WinWord, MsnMessenger, and I think Visual Studio before I uninstalled it
and started doing development remotely via a Remote Desktop Connection.

* Often the taskbar will stop responding or updating. If I restart the explorer.exe
process it will just go straight back to being busy and the taskbar will
stop responding again.

* The most common start to this situation appears to be when starting IE6,
either from the start menu or from clicking a link in an email.

* Sometimes maximising and minimising a 2nd IE window will "free" up another
"frozen" window.

* If I stay away from IE I can usually get excellent performance out of my
machine with Outlook sending and receiving emails without incident.


I'm a bit hesitant to reinstall the OS from scratch only because of the specialist
hardware that come with this machine (bluetooth, wireless networking, touchpad,
fingerprint reader) all of which work fine now. Also the potential downtime
scares me off this option.

Other suggestions have been
* upgrade to IE7
* wait for another update to fix what may be a known OS problem
* use another browser (can I uninstall IE without affecting the OS?)
* ring Microsoft
* ring Toshiba

I had been so happy with this Windows setup and defended it to my (ex-windows)
mate who has had a dream run over a similar period with his new Mac Ibook.

I would be really grateful for any suggestions on where to start.

regards,
Paul Ritchie.

> * If I stay away from IE I can usually get excellent performance out
> of my machine with Outlook sending and receiving emails without
> incident.

Inspired by a response from pcbutts I removed a toolbar that I have had installed
in IE for many months. By laptop is now performing far better.

My advice would now be that you can't install anything else into IE and blame
IE for any subsequent poor performance. Obvious really, when you think about
it.

cheers,
Paul.