I'm not sure that I understand you, however if it is simply the case that icons on your start menu are slow to appear, then the following may help...

Windows caches all icons for files into a single image list. Once an icon is added to the list, it normally remains on it until you log off. The system image list can be reset, for instance, if a file association changes but this should not occur routinely.

If the system image list is being reset, then rogue software is the most likely cause - do you have some sort of icon manager installed?

Even if the system image list is being reset, I would not expect this to be a massive problem unless your anti-virus software (real-time scanning) is faulty.

Kaled.

I run my system as clean as can be and have Avast for an anti-virus. I don't have any "icon manager"...that's just...no, just no. I'd prefer the icons to stay cached but XP keeps having to reload them all that time.

- John

Is it just the start menu or do desktop icons behave similarly?

There is a registry setting that might possibly be faulty. Look in
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\lnkfile
There may be a key called DefaultIcon - if there is, rename it to something else, log off and log on again.

This key should not be present for lnkfile but if it were present it might possibly have the effect you have described. (NOTE : That's LNKFILE not INKFILE)

Kaled.

Thank you for your suggestions Kaled. I tried your second recommendation and the problem still persisted unfortunately.

However I apparently found a solution that is shared from a different problem, as long as it works right?

You have to save and execute the following file and naturally it requires a reboot. I haven't had to wait for the icons to load at all for about a day now so it seems to have worked just fine!

- John

start_menu_fix.vbs

Option Explicit

Set WSHShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

Dim WSHShell, n, p, itemtype, mybox

p = "HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics\IconTitleWrap"

itemtype = "REG_SZ"

n = "0"

WSHShell.RegWrite p, n, itemtype

MyBox = MsgBox("You must Log Off/Log On for the changes to take effect.", 64,"Done")

I'll bet your hard drive is on the way out.