Windows 10: Taskbar toolbar menu delays - Difficult to explain - Bear with me

Windows 10 Version 1903 (build 18362.418)

Hello,

I am experiencing odd delays on some of my taskbar toolbars, but not all.

First, I need to explain what I have going on. On my taskbar I have 4 toolbars which are set up in the default fashion that has the toolbar title with a small arrow next to it. When I click the arrow it opens a menu with whatever is in that toolbar/folder. Some of these toolbars, but not all, are having 5 second or so delays when clicking the arrow before the menu populates. It is just plain white for 5 seconds as if the drive is loading. I can also hear the CPU fans increase as though it is working simply to load some shortcuts? Let me explain the drives and each toolbar so maybe you can help determine what is causing menu delays.

C drive - ssd
E drive - hdd
F drive - ssd
My power settings are set so no hard drivers ever go to sleep.

The toolbars are the following:
Media| Games | Apps | System

I'm going to explain the contents of each and which ones are experiencing issues so maybe you can compare one from the other and help me to figure it out:

"Media" points to the root of the E drive (hdd), which contains a couple dozen subfolders at the first level. These are not shortcuts but actual folders. This menu loads instantaneously. Good.

"Games" points to a folder in C:\Users\%\Documents\Toolbars\Games and inside the folder is around 30 or so shortcuts to launch games. These are the same shortcuts that are created on the desktop when games install, then I drag them to this folder instead. Some of the games are installed on C drive (ssd) while most of them are installed on F drive (ssd). This menu has a roughly 5 second delay when clicking on it for the first time in a session. Bad.

"Apps" is similar to Games and points to C:\Users\%\Documents\Toolbars\Apps and contains shortcuts to 20 or so programs most of which are installed on C drive, a few on the F drive. This menu also has a roughly 5 second delay when clicking on it for the first time in a session. Bad.

"System" points to C:\Users\%\Documents\Toolbars\System and contains about 40 shortcuts to various Windows 10 tools, like defragger, char map, task manager, cmd prompt, etc, settings, and several custom scripts. This menu loads instantaneously. Good.

So, that means out of these 4 toolbars, only "Games" and "Apps" are experiencing abnormaly delays. I cannot figure out why. It is only the first time I click it in a given session, afterwards, it loads quickly.

I tried to clear the icon cache .db files with admin level command promp, even in safe mode, and it says access denied. Impossible to delete them. Not sure if that is the issue but I read that when Googling around so I can't say if that is my issue or not since the cache won't delete. It is worth noting, while in safe mode, the delay is still present on those 2 toolbars, except it is only half a second instead of 5 seconds. Odd. I am tempted to say then that in safe mode there is no delay, that 1/2 second is a standard for 30 shortcuts, but I don't think so... This machine should be able to handle that no problem. SO even 1/2 a second delay in safe mode seems inadequate to me. So whatever the problem, it may be "less" in safe mode, if that's any indication of anything.

I know it might not sound like a big problem, just a 5 second delay and only the first click in a given session... but it is quite annoying and makes me feel bad about my custom build with performance parts since it can't even load a menu like it is Windows 95 still.

Thank you for any help solving this weird, annoying delay issue.

Windows 10 Version 1903 (build 18362.418)

:)

 

Enabled Scroll Ability for Taskbar Toolbar Menus?

QTTabBar

 

Feature suggestion: Add right-click menu

Suggestion: Please add a Windows 7 Jump-List and/or right-click menu to the GPU-Z icon in the Windows taskbar. Possible menus in it would be "Exit" and "About GPU-Z...".
Maybe also "Switch to tab 1/Switch to tab 2/Switch to videocard 1/Switch to videocard 2" too.
Examples of programs that have such menus are ICQ, Skype, AIM.

NOTE: It seems for a right-click menu, Windows 7 is not needed - it works on WinXP and Vista too.
But even a Windows 7 Jump-list may be good enough.
What do you think?

 

Enabled Scroll Ability for Taskbar Toolbar Menus?


I've used the Desktop Toolbar on my taskbar for ages now.

My one complaint has always been the fact that I can't scroll through the list with my mouse wheel. I have to point my cursor to the arrow at the edges of the menu for it to scroll up/down. *cry

Is there any way to get what I'm asking for? *Think