I am running Windows ME. For some reason it takes froever when I try to install new hardware. What takes an eternity is when Windows builds the hardware driver information database. I think that Norton System Works 2001 maybe have caused the problem. Specifically Speed Disk or the "Optimize Windows" program which does some registry maintenance. I have 2 machines that this problem is on. Anyone have a similar problem? Any solutiomns? Thanks, Ron

What are your system specs? How long is long?

Yep, system works is the culprit. Actually, disk doctor. If you have done any windows or microsoft updates while it was running it causes a problem. (I suggest that you do the next from dos) Go to c:\windows\inf and type in DEL OEM*.INF I'm not sure why, and neither is Microsoft, but with the system doctor running when installing updates it creates a lot of these files. I'm not talking dozens, I'm talking thousands. It could take HOURS for the computer to delete them all. I've seen computers with 65,000 and more. MS KB Article Q281967 ---Good Luck

Yeah I found that info on Symantec Knowledge base. I did that and it helped a little. It still takes a while. The problem on my 2 machines doesn't come from System Doctor. I think it might be the work of Martian Hackers. I'm working with Symantec now on their support forum but they don't seem to know what's going on either. After deleting the INF files the driver database builds at a decent rate. It still takes forever to detect what the device is though. The program that windows uses to detect the hardware is called cmdinst. Got any knowledge on this? Thanks for the help.