One of the annoying features of Windows XP's WE is its assumption it has a holy duty to report the Duration and Dimension details of every single vidoe file whenever it (or rather, you) traverses into a directory chock full of them. This slows down the system considerably to extract information one wouldn't need 99.99% of the time.
And by "holy duty" I mean Windows doesn't give a usable interface option for disabling this "enchanced" function.
Well, rejoice. All that is needed is to rename the following obscure Registry key
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{87D62D94-71B3-4b9a-9489-5FE6850DC73E}
to something like
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\DISABLED{87D62D94-71B3-4b9a-9489-5FE6850DC73E}
Sweet (and swift) liberation is just round the corner.