Solved Mailto: Desktop Shortcut Slow To Open - Usual "Fixes" Don't Work, Ideas Anyone?

No matter whether I set Windows Mail as the default or my other email client Incredimail XE Premium. when I click my Mailto: shortcut to quickly write an email, it opens OK, but only after about 15 long seconds.
I've tried switching defaults and making sure each time that both the email client and the mailto: have the correct defaults in Windows Explorer Default Programs settings.

Anything I might have missed? It only started doing this lately and before I blame something in error I'd be interested in any thoughts. Thanks in advance.

Hello Peter,

You might see if disabling the Windows Mail splash screen may help speed it up to open some.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/68174-windows-mail-splash-screen.html

If that doesn't help, then you may need to use one of the items in the tutorial below to fix Windows Mail.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/72674-windows-mail-slow.html

Thanks, splash already disabled so will read that other link. I have a feeling it's my antivirus' fault. It changed versions recently and this issue started. I've turned off email scanning to no avail.

It was my antivirus - it's uninstalled at the moment as I'm trying to obtain a more recent version (don't worry I'm protected) and all the slowness vanished.

Great news. What AV program caused it?

McAfee All Access - Total Security. They've changed the way it works recently to foil these ransomware pests and making a few mistakes by the look of it. The strange thing is this never came out in the beta software which I test on Win 7.
I test for them plus am an Admin at their Forums, so I can't very well bad-mouth them . Usually there is no problem but McAfee SecurityCenter v13.6.1529 is the culprit. It's a version that is sort of "in-between" versions if you know what I mean.
I hope the problems will disapppear with v14.x which is slowly being cranked out. I know there are lots of people out there ready to bad-mouth McAfee et alia, but they are excellent usually. Their takeover by Intel hopefully has no bearing.

Something interesting I found out, about Incredimail at least, it utilizes IE for display purposes and a.t.m. McAfee SiteAdvisor is playing silly b's in IE, so that could be something to do with it.
I'm not sure what Windows Mail relies on, but it is slightly faster at doing the same things than Incredimail is. But still not as fast as without any security software. The fact that SA checks with the Cloud for everything may have something to do with this too.
I have a feeling it'll all "come out in the wash" somehow and soon I hope.

Hope so.

;-)