In Windows Tweaks

• Search
• Remember Folder View
• Messenger off
• Tooltips off
• Performance
• Registry hacks
• Disable XP auto update
• Slimming XP
• Disable Indexing
• Disable startup programs
• Change drive letters
• Keyboard shortcuts
• Services
• Speed up NTFS
• Speed up Outlook
• Tweak the Prefetch
• Slow network browsing
• Notification ballons off
• Remove Shared Folder
• Move Startup Folder
• Menu Show Delay
• Animated Windows

Slow network browsing

There’s a common problem in Windows XP that can make network browsing very slow.

If the 'My Network Places' folder contains a shortcut to a network share, then each refresh of the explorer window will attempt to read icon information from every file in the remote location, causing the system to slow to a crawl.

Removing all shortcuts from 'My Network Places' will return the system response to normal.

Every time you open a file via a UNC name, Windows XP will automatically add another shortcut to the 'My Network Places' folder - so the issue tends to get worse over time.

You can prevent the automatic addition of shortcuts by setting
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\
Policies\Explorer\NoRecentDocsNetHood to 1.