Today from Steve, a very useful tip I wish I’d discovered years ago:
Windows 2000 & XP machines delay as long as 30 seconds when you try to view shared files across a network because Windows is using the extra time to search the remote computer for any Scheduled Tasks.
Here’s how to prevent this remote search for Scheduled Tasks. Open up the Registry and go to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / Software / Microsoft / Windows / CurrentVersion / Explorer / RemoteComputer / NameSpace
Under that branch, select the key:
{D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF}
and delete it.
And just like that, your network shares will once more become instantly accessible. Hard to imagine why this isn’t the default behaviour…