Just to warn you, I am being picky here but nevertheless hope someone can help me out.

I have 4 PCs (2 are win98 and 2 are winxp pro) sharing a gigabit switch and all have gigabit ethernet cards. I share files a lot between them.

Using network neighborhood/network places, the win98 machines can browse the other machines very quickly. Browsing the C drive of the remote 3 machines is about as quick as browsing the local C drive, meaning it is instantaneous.

But when I am on one of the winxp pro machines, there is a 2-3 second delay anytime I try to browse one of the remote machines. I would like to eliminate this delay.

I have deleted the registry keys that force a search of remote printers and scheduled tasks, both of which are in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Remote Computer\NameSpace

That helped somewhat, but xp is still clearly slower than win98 when browsing the network. Does anyone know what else I can do to the xp machines to speed up their browsing? Thanks.

Note that I am not talking about file transfer speeds - just the delays in showing directory contents.

On every network browsing at shared folders on a remote PC, Windows 2000 and Windows XP is looking for a scheduled tasks to start.
In normal cases there are no tasks to start and so you can avoid this by deleting a special registry key on the Windows 2000 or Windows XP PCs.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\Explorer\RemoteComputer\NameSpace\{D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF}

This will speed up browsing shared folder.

Yes I had mentioned that above (in the top post) but the xp machines are still noticeably slower in browsing speed.

So the only way to avoid the 2 seconds of waiting time is to map the shared folder as a drive, e.g. X: or whatever you like between F and Z.

mapping the shared folder as a drive results in the same delay. The delay is larger when there are a large numbers of files in the folder.

Maybe winxp is searching for attributes or something?

Windows XP stores the password in the login information management.
When you try to browse a Windows 95/98/ME PC, Windows XP tries to connect to a Domain Controller to check the password.
Since there is no Domain Controller in a Workgroup Environment, you have to wait for a timeout that is by default 2 seconds.
That's the case.

That is interesting, but I do not think that is the issue. However I have figured out how to replicate the problem.

If on my local xp machine I go to c:\windows then click any folder, say the addins folder, and then go back a level (back to c:\windows), it is instantaneous. If I then browse in the same manner to one of the remote machines (say \\othercomputer\windows\addins and then back to \\othercomputer\windows\), there is a delay while my local hard drive has something being written to it.

If I do all of the above from a win98 machine, it is instantaneous no matter if I am on the local machine or a remote machine.

winxp appears to be caching or calculating something when browsing a remote folder. It doesn't matter which remote machine I am browsing btw.

So now the question is, what happens, if you try to browse a shared folder on another WinXP machine.
Did you get the same delay?

yes it is only dependant on the machine I am on, not on the machine I am browsing.

When I am on a winxp machine browsing any other machine, there is a delay and I can hear the local hard drive writing as the remote folder opens, as though winxp is caching something.

When I am on a win89 machine browsing any other machine, it is instantaneous.

Sorry, what I meant was, are you able to test, whether this problem exists, when you try to browse a winxp machine from another winxp machine?

yes I have. What I meant to say above was that it is the same regardless of the machine being browsed. A winxp machine being browsed from a winxp machine is slower than a winxp machine being browsed from a win98 machine. The remote machine being browsed does not matter, what matters is the local machine doing the browsing.

Ok, so I think you have to check the installed network requester by rightclicking Network Neighborhood / Properties / LAN-Connection (rightclick) / properties.

Here you need:
Client for Microsoft Networks
File and Printer sharing
Netbios
TCP/IP (Internetprotocol)

Any additional Protocol or Requester will take time when accessing the network.
In a pure WinXP environment, you don't need Netbios because there is an option "Netbios over TCP/IP" in the TCP/IP properties.
But I don't really know whether "Netbios over TCP/IP) is runnig with Win98 PCs.
But try out, it's your time to play with it.

Very odd, isn't it?

Good idea. I uninstalled 3 or 4 things from the network area and feel like it may have speeded up a little now after rebooting.

The folder delay from before (back and forth between \\othercomp\windows\addins and \\othercomp\windows) is still there. Note that it is dpenedant on the number of files in the target folder (\\othercomp\windows being a large folder). for folders with only one or two files, winxp is pertty much as fast as win98.

Thanks for all your help.

What's about Antivirus Software?
Maybe the folders you're browsing will be scanned from the local or a remote virus scanner.
So the more files are in one folder the more delay you get.

I do not have any av installed