While I think XP is a good improvement over Win2K and NT4, they all suffer from one (maybe two) really annoying ‘features’.
Whenever I have a mapped drive to a network share, or My Documents mapped to a network share, or network share history in the address toobar of IE….erm..I mean Windows Exploder, and the network or that network share becomes unavailable, the OS comes to a screeching halt.
Pulling down the address bar in IE takes minutes to time out before showing me internet addresses. Using windows explorer to navigate other shares and folder takes a minute to time out. Basically, a ‘modern’ ‘multi-tasking’ OS delays everything under the sun just because a network share goes away for a few minutes. Damn annoying.
Of course, the problem is magnified by the fact that windows eplorer is IE, and that fact that it is set to a single instance and thread. Sure, I can TweakUI it so each windows explorer instance is a new thread, but I shouldn’t have to.