Slow browsing save/open location MS Paint

[alexsmith2709]

I've got a bit of a weird one. Whenever i want to open/save something in MS Paint browsing through the file explorer (within MS Paint) it is incredibly slow, taking upwards of 15 seconds to change folder and every folder change is this slow. Has anyone come across this before? The only other software that this happens with is virtualbox, everything else works as expected. I've tried reinstalling virtualbox and that made no difference.

I've deleted the Quick Access cache from %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations with no difference.

Does anyone know what i could check for troubleshooting this?

I've got an Intel i5-1240P processor, 512GB NVMe drive and 32GB RAM. Only these 2 bits of software have this issue. Its all folders, not just onedrive/cloud locations. Using a Microsoft account with M365 Business Premium license to login.

This has been happening for quite some time, I've just never been able to fix/diagnose it so dont think its a windows update issue (also found no other reports of it happening anywhere).

EDIT: Forgot to add, the error in Event Viewer is:

Faulting module name: mfc120u.dll, version: 12.0.40664.0, time stamp: 0x59260d2a
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x0000000000288bfd
Faulting process ID: 0x0x2410

I've repaired/reinstalled Microsoft Visual C++ 2013 Redistributable (x86 and x64) which is where i believe this dll comes from

 

[HCHTech]

Paint is in the MS Store, right? Have you tried uninstalling / reinstalling it?

 

[nlinecomputers]

I've repaired/reinstalled Microsoft Visual C++ 2013 Redistributable (x86 and x64) which is where i believe this dll comes from

Have you tried 2015? I don't think VirtualBox uses the older one.

 

[nlinecomputers]

VBox needs 2019.

 

[alexsmith2709]

Paint is in the MS Store, right? Have you tried uninstalling / reinstalling it?

Sorry, meant normal (old style) paint.

Have you tried 2015? I don't think VirtualBox uses the older one.

VBox needs 2019.

I have 2010, 2012, 2013 & 2015-2022 installed. I only reinstalled 2013 as thats where i saw mfc120u.dll is included.
I have done a repair install on the others now with no change and 2015-2022 looks to have only been updated 2 days ago so dont think thats the cause.

 

[nlinecomputers]

Also is this Win11 or 10?

 

[britechguy]

You might want to have a look at: https://www.elevenforum.com/t/ms-paints-from-win-10-win-7-and-win-xp.12218/
and https://winaero.com/windows-10-classic-paint-for-windows-11/

 

[alexsmith2709]

Also is this Win11 or 10?

Windows 11. Happened across a few versions of virtualbox. No idea if paint has updated in this time.

You might want to have a look at: https://www.elevenforum.com/t/ms-paints-from-win-10-win-7-and-win-xp.12218/
and https://winaero.com/windows-10-classic-paint-for-windows-11/

As this effects more than 1 piece of software i'd rather find and fix the underlying problem. I may be missing something but the Windows 10 version of paint looks very similar to the Windows 11 version

 

[britechguy]

i'd rather find and fix the underlying problem.

And if you can, that's great. But uninstalling reinstalling can be considered part of the diagnostic. If it solves the issue for Paint, but not the other software, the issue seems to be "self-contained" in the respective programs. If it fixes the issue for Paint, and the other software, there's probably a faulty library file that's been replaced.

Have you done a DISM/SFC pair to see if that makes any difference?

 

[alexsmith2709]

Yeah i did DISM/SFC.
I realised that you didnt know what OS i was running when you posted those links, but it seemed like you were saying to install different versions of Paint.

Anyway, i have since found the issue. Looking through event viewer again i found an entry relating to a different DLL which belonged to some software installed as part of my printer (hooks into explorer and allows me to browse/copy files from the HDD in the printer). Every time Paint/Virtualbox hung it created a few entries in the error log, after seeing multiple entries for "mfc120u.dll" i skipped over the others, but a more careful view resulted in the other DLL. I dont really use this software any more so have uninstalled it and now the issue is fixed. I have no idea why only these 2 pieces of software were affected.

 

[HCHTech]

Sorry, meant normal (old style) paint.

Both versions are available in the MS Store. Here is a screenshot from W11:

 

[HCHTech]

Yeah i did DISM/SFC.

For DISM to work best, you need to download an ISO of the version of Windows you are running, mount it with explorer, then point it to that mounted ISO like this:

dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth /source:e:\sources\install.esd /limitaccess

replacing "e:\sources" with the actual letter of your mounted ISO.

 

[britechguy]

@HCHTech,

I was about to recommend this "souped up" version of DISM to someone having a very peculiar problem, but I have got 2 issues that need clearing up:

1. Do you mean substitute E: with whatever drive letter the ISO mounts as, rather than substituting "E:\sources"?

2. Do you mean install.wim under E:\sources, not install.esd? I ask because I just mounted the last Win11 ISO I downloaded, which is very recent, and the only file with the name "install" is install.wim, which is under the sources folder.

 

[alexsmith2709]

@HCHTech,

I was about to recommend this "souped up" version of DISM to someone having a very peculiar problem, but I have got 2 issues that need clearing up:

1. Do you mean substitute E: with whatever drive letter the ISO mounts as, rather than substituting "E:\sources"?

2. Do you mean install.wim under E:\sources, not install.esd? I ask because I just mounted the last Win11 ISO I downloaded, which is very recent, and the only file with the name "install" is install.wim, which is under the sources folder.

You can use a WIM by using the WIM parameter like:

dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth /Source:WIM:E:\sources\Install.WIM /limitaccess

 

[HCHTech]

1. Do you mean substitute E: with whatever drive letter the ISO mounts as, rather than substituting "E:\sources"?

2. Do you mean install.wim under E:\sources, not install.esd? I ask because I just mounted the last Win11 ISO I downloaded, which is very recent, and the only file with the name "install" is install.wim, which is under the sources folder.

1. Yes. Find the .esd file and point the command at it. So if it lives in g:\sources, then that's what you need to put into the command.

2. @alexsmith2709 is correct. If the ISO only has a .wim file, adjust the command as he has noted.

I don't know why some downloads have .wim and some .esd - it might be a WIn10 vs. Win11 thing. I usually use the media creation tool to get the fresh ISO if the computer I'm working on is fully patched, so that always has the .esd as I recall. Curse of a fast internet is that it's just about as fast to get the fresh ISO this way as it is to find it on my server and copy it to the machine I'm working on.

Also, it seems when I get down to using this as a potential solution, I've already tried bringing the machine up to day if it was still on 21H1 or something, so usually I'm in the "fully patched" situation.

 

[britechguy]

Well, I tried with ESD and WIM (making sure both exist, and I'm pointing at the correct location for the mounted ISO) and I keep getting "cannot find source" errors.