For some reason my Windows Explorer has been running abnormally slow the past few days. And inside Explorer some of the files are colored blue, while the rest are the ordinary black. I have no idea what could've sparked this change. But I'd be very appreciative for any responses. Thanks.

Are you running NTFS file system? You can check by clicking on the drive in windows explorer and looking at the file system formatting. I will probably say NTFS. IF this is so, then what you see with the blue text is the fact that your files in blue are compressed. THis is a safe means of operation in Windows 2k and XP, but if you have a slower than normal drive (ATA 33 or even 66) then you will begin to notice a slowdown of your system when it has to read these files. The remedy to turn off is to select the drive that they are residing at and then right click and select properties. if you are running XP home then click on the advanced button and uncheck compress and when it asks, select files and subfiles/folders radio button. This will force XP to release compression on all files. This should turn all file names back to black.

Thanks for your help. I did uncheck it, but I don't get the "select files and subfiles/folders radio button". Is there another way, or would this have to be done manually?