Slow taskbar for certain user

Question

Good day!

My taskbar is very slow to respond when clicking grouped icons, the start menu, the search bar, and the icon that expands the system tray. However, clicking on "ungrouped" icons responds instantly. Moreover, Alt+Tab and WinKey+Tab responds instantly and switches windows instantly. Clicking the notification icon doesn't seem to have any noticeable slow down as far as I can observe.

I started to notice this after getting the update KB5017308 on 2022-09-19. I was and am unable to do a system restore for that unfortunately. That's the only significant change in my computer that I can attribute it to. I've never had an issue with Windows 10 before this.

I've tried steps in the first answer in this question and it didn't seem to help: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/taskbar-windows-slow/9a29ef1f-3daf-4560-8ddc-aeb172651610

Just some info:

• It's still an issue on a "Clean Boot".
• It's still an issue if I set the Performance Options > Visual Effects > Adjust for best performance
• I tried updating the Nvidia drivers using their GeForce Game Ready Drivers and nothing seems changed regarding this.
• Taskbar's "News and interests" setting is OFF.
• Taskbar's "People" setting is OFF
• It's a laptop but none of the bloatware is installed. I installed Windows 10 on a new SSD that I added to it.
• EDIT: Setting it to "Never" combine taskbar buttons does let me switch to a window instantly on a click in the taskbar but the rest of the other issues persists.

I've also tried creating a new user and it's not an issue on that user so it seems to be an issue when logging in to this user that I've been using since the installation of Windows 10. I'd prefer to resolve this issue in this user as I'd rather have that solution than to go through the pain of moving to a new user whenever this issue occurs again.

Thanks!

Dennis

EDIT: This has been resolved. See my last reply. Sorry, I don't know if there's a proper way to mark it as resolved.

Answer 1

OK. Using Windows Certificate Manager, I deleted a bunch of entries under Personal > Certificates, all "issued by" DO_NOT_TRUST_FiddlerRoot. That seems to have resolved the problems.

I don't know why that, particularly, is holding up the functionality of the taskbar, however.

Answer 2

OK. Using Windows Certificate Manager, I deleted a bunch of entries under Personal > Certificates, all "issued by" DO_NOT_TRUST_FiddlerRoot. That seems to have resolved the problems.

I don't know why that, particularly, is holding up the functionality of the taskbar, however.

I had exactly the same issue. in my system I had about 8000+ personal certificats from different users (our customers need to sign in via their id card) in the certificate manager.

Deleted them and immidiately the system was running smooth again.

What is the link? no idea.

Answer 3

I just tried Process Monitor. I noticed that whenever I try to do these taskbar things that I'm complaining about, Explorer.EXE will do a barrage of activity on my <user>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\SystemCertificates\My\Certificates\ directory.

Answer 4

Thanks for that. However, it didn't seem to do anything.

I can add a few more details just in case it helps. Not sure if I should add these on the original question.

• When clicking a grouped icon, it takes about 1~4 seconds for the window previews to pop up. However, after one grouped icon's window previews are already up, clicking another grouped icon will instantly pop up the new window previews.
• The delay in the response time (for everything stated in the original post) seems to be variable, even when my CPU has no load with just some MS Edge windows open.

EDIT: Just in case someone else sees the answer, I'll just note that I had to log out of the user that owns the files to be deleted.

Answer 5

Hello DennisGuinto,

Good day! I'm John Dev a Windows user like you and I'll be happy to assist you today. I know this has been difficult for you, Rest assured, I'm going to do my best to help you.

Please try this.

Login to the new user account

Open File explorer then Under View > Show hidden items

Navigate to this folder

C:\Users&lt;username of the main account>\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.Search_cw5n1h2txyewy\Settings

Delete all files inside

Once deleted, Restart your computer then login to your main account.

If this does not work, please do the same in the following paths below

C:\Users&lt;username of the main account>\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.StartMenuExperienceHost_cw5n1h2txyewy\Settings

C:\Users&lt;username of the main account>\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ShellExperienceHost_cw5n1h2txyewy\Settings

Kind regards,

John DeV

Independent Advisor