My computer has reached new heights of slowness. It’s absolutely driving me crazy, but there’s no money in the budget for a new one (not even that killer laptop deal that’s mine for the taking). So I’m stuck with it for now.

If there’s anyone more technically inclined than me reading this (I’m sure there is), maybe you can help me out with something. I have my writing files in a folder on my desktop with subfolders for each of my clients. I create a subfolder in the client’s folder for each assignment, which consists of anywhere from one to 30 articles (usually 10 or 15). When I’m done with the assignment, I right click on its folder, go to “send to”, and click “zipped folder” to create a compressed folder to send to the client.

Problem is, every time I do this, my computer slows down to a crawl. When I open the client’s folder, it’s like it already knows what I’m going to do. All the icons disappear from my desktop, sometimes the folder window goes blank, and it takes forever for it to straighten back up. I’m talking sometimes 10 to 15 minutes. It’s not exactly frozen because I can move my mouse, and can sometimes get as far as right-clicking the assignment folder and having the menu pop up. But when I point to “send to”, it just sits there, icons popping back up and reappearing, and that’s it. When it gets done with its little dance, I finally get the “send to” sub-menu, and I can click on “zipped folder” and it’s done within a few seconds.

I thought maybe the folders were too full, so I went through and removed all of the old unzipped subfolders that I didn’t need any more. That didn’t help a bit. I’ve also tried defragmenting, to no avail. Anybody have a clue what could be going on and how to fix it? I would be extremely grateful for any help on this, because it’s affecting my productivity.