Question : Intermit problems: Windows Explorer looks weird and new tasks won't start

This problem occurs about about a half dozen times each day.  It has been going on for about 6 months. It started about the same time I had problems with Trend Messaging Suite for SMB 6.2, but those have gone away (a nightmare I won't explain), so it is probably a coincidence.  Also this might be related to Outlook, MS Access, or X1 search engine, but have not been able to pin it on any of those.

It usually happens when I have a bunch of windows open.

The symptoms are very distinctive, with most of the following occuring most of the time.

* Internet explorer doesn't show the menu and navigation toolbar at the the top of the window.  
* Nothing happens when I double clicking to expand a folder.
* Clicking the Start button doesn't do anything.
* Alt tab doesn't show the "Icon Summary" of open applications.   Normally, when I hold down alt then type tab tab tab tab, this summary shows up to 3 rows of 6 icons representing open applications. But when things get broken, each alt tab snaps immediately to the next application without showing "icon summary".
* Sometimes alt tab does not do anything, but alt shift tab takes me to the previous task.
* When I right click on the explorer group in the windows task bar, nothing happens --  I do not get the submenu (the one that usually contains "Cascade", "Close group" etc.
* To get out of this weird mode, I have to close a few applications.  I can't close them from the task bar, but I can close them by clicking the red X in window on the desktop.

Sometimes i will just close one explorer window out of 30 open windows and things will revert to normal and remain normal for hours.  Other times I have to close most of the windows.

Sometimes I get messages about "not enough resources", but usually I do not get those messages.

Probably this is caused by a memory leak, but the Peak Commit Charge of 1,672,584  is well below the limit(3,510,932) and also below the Total Physical(2,095,472).

This is very hard to trouble shoot because closing 1 to 5 of anything fixes it.  I haven't noticed a pattern with one particular application being open.  But, this is not surprising because I normally have EVERY application open. (Excel, Outlook, Access, Windows Explorer, Internet Explorer, PDF)

This is mainly just an annoyance, so I haven't done much trouble shooting (other than my weekly virus scan and adware scans).

I'm hoping someone has had similar problems and figured out how to resolve them.

Answer : Intermit problems: Windows Explorer looks weird and new tasks won't start

You might try looking at the Task Manager during one of these episodes. You might be able to locate the process that is taking up an abnormal amount of memory or CPU time.
Also, I do know the explorer.exe is tied to the desktop. So you might try SFC SCANNOW to see if that file (or others) are corrupted.
Details and instructions here.
http://www.updatexp.com/scannow-sfc.html
You'll need your OS CD and about twenty minutes or so.
If that doesn't correct the issue you might try an OS Repair.
XP Repair.
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm
Note: An XP Repair will not overwrite your data. However, you should treat the process as it might by backing up any data you deem important.
David