Hi Frank

>thanks for pointing that out to me as it seems to have done the trick. I found this solution: http://www.experts-exchange.com/OS/Microsoft_Operating_Systems/Windows/NT/Q_10088433.html
>You have to scroll down to the end of the page to get the actual details.

Yupp, similar to the story whetting my interest<g>. Highly doubtful if I would have scrolled that far down if you hadn't mentioned it<bg>.
>Basically, what I have done is created the SharingViolationRetries in HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters to REG_DWORD 0 and this has knocked off approximately 5 to 7 seconds from the query times.

So already more than 50% of the slowdown is gone - great start.

>I did not create the SharingViolationDelay string.
>Unfortunately I haven't done any accurate timing but once things settle down I'll try and do some and report back here.

I would probably have done the same - check out if the idea has merit before getting down to measure the combinations. Looking forward to your results.

>What does SMB stand for?

Server Message Blocks - the acronym "Samba" was derived from. see:
http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb%3Ben-us%3B935370&x=15&y=9
describes anything relevant to your situation.

regards

thomas