Girl Geekette

MS KB Article 819101 has more info:
 
In Windows Explorer, when you right-click a file or folder, you may experience any of the following behavior:
Any file copy operation that is occurring at that time may appear to stop responding.
Network connection speed may significantly decrease.
All streaming input/output operations such as listening to music on Windows Media Player may become distorted.
When you right-click a file or folder in Windows Explorer, the CPU usage goes to 100 percent while the shortcut menu is displayed. It returns to the correct level when the shortcut menu is closed.
To work around this behavior, use either of the following methods:

Method 1

Turn off the transition effects for menus and ToolTips.
To do this, follow these steps:
To turn off the transition effects in Windows XP do the following:
Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
In Control Panel, double-click Display.
In the Display Properties dialog box, click the Appearance tab.
On the Appearance tab, click Effects.
In the Effects dialog box, click to clear the Use the following transition effect for menus and tool tips check box, and then click OK two times.

Method 2

Click the folder or file that you want (select it) before you right-click it to display the shortcut menu.

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