Windows XP forum: XP: Undo freezes 10 seconds

Let them cure it. They'll fix or reload the machine.

While you can explore the machine with PROCESS EXPLORER the usual issue is still an IT only choice. I found Norton and Mcafee or overlapping protection software to be at play. But only your IT staffer will let you change that.

Meanwhile think about it. They pay by the hour so if they dog you or hobble you they pay you for it.
Bob

I have asked a technical question which has a technical answer.

If I made changes and IT got mad at CNET, then IT is full of fools and idiots. It would be the user's error alone. No one should rationally expect CNET to bear the blame for something a user tries. That's the spirit of these forums. What should I try? And so on.

But nevermind: I found the answer. It turns out it was a problem in Flash CS3. I changed the "UNDO" setting from DOCUMENT_LEVEL to OBJECT_LEVEL. Fixed the problem and I'm moving on with my life.

Forums like this one are generally a waste of time. I often wonder whether responders have no lives whatsoever eat cat food. I tried to weed out the useless, idiotic "help" suggestions up front in my original post: Rebooted, AV, temp files, and so on... but as usual, rather than thinking critically about a particular problem, forums will generally find any reason to dance around or otherwise not address the issue in question (see: this post and infinite others).

Many valid points. It's true that I mistakenly suspected the OS and I'll be the first to admit that. Naturally, if I had the answers to everything, I wouldn't have posted anything in the first place. But I realize that's not what you're saying.

I must say, however, that the knee-jerk "reboot, refresh, reimage" mantra isn't always correct. Flash CS3, for instance, installed with the "DOCUMENT_LEVEL" switch setting for the UNDO right out of the box. That would be restored in a clean wipe, wouldn't it, and after however long it would take for IT to prioritize my job and reinstall the software and everything, I'd be back to square one with the UNDO problem here. Correct?

Similarly, XP is not acceptable out of the box, nor is Vista, and we all know that these operating systems go through hours of updates after a fresh install. The systems must be tweaked on multiple layer levels, like with network settings which can vary widely between home and corporate users. As it happens, my PC is one of the only graphics workstations in the entire company, and in fact, it took three weeks to get it to my desk mainly because IT had never seen this kind of machine before. I certainly don't want to go through that again.

People want to be helpful on the forums and I appreciate that. I myself try to help out wherever I can. But merely suggesting a "clean wipe" or "re-image" of the system within two or three replies to a post such as mine is absolutely unhelpful and, frankly, it'd be better if people possessing only that level of knowledge stay out of the discussions altogether. It's an endemic problem and, to be frank, completely discourages people from viewing user-supported forums like this one as at all useful.

C5