Hi, Bhavbhuti and Dragan.

>I mean I was looking at the HDD beating itself to death in both the cases. This is esp. true with XP, maybe I am wrong but I have noticed that it will give you everything, then slowly and steadily load things one by one slowing the inital stuff you are doing.

Did you try disabling the Search agent? Take a look at KB article:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;899869

Who uses Windows to search for files, anyway?
I don't really know if disabling Explorer (with BBLan, for example) actualy stops the cidaemon service, but it is a real hog.

Regards,