I have noticed that it has been taking longer and longer to save or preview a page so I followed some advice on here and changed my compatibility settings to XP service pack 2, I used to be on XP service pack 3. It doesn't appear to have been a good idea because when I go to preview a page or the whole website using the "default browser" setting it takes forever and then comes up with a windows application error!!
If however I use one of my other browsers for preview, Firefox, IE or Opera it works fine and I can preview the page or website in a reasonable time.
I have gone back to my original compatibility settings but it makes no difference.
The bit that really bugs me though is the length of time it takes to save the website before previewing or publishing, it often "stops responding" for three or four minutes and then starts again of its own accord.

Any ideas?
Win7 32bit 4Gb ram

No ideas then!
I am guessing it is some sort of set up problem on my PC and therefore could be almost anything, however it used to work fine and there have been no major changes to my setup for a while.

Any clues to likely problem would really help me, after all it is fast approaching the festive season, goodwill to all men etc!!

I dont know if this might help, But i find using a separate user account in windows xp pro, that is just for CC programs, ie website development, makes everything work better over all.

And I regularly Open a new user account ie in january, i will start a new myaccount2012 and import the bits and bobs from previous account, and then delete the old account completely.

This speeds things up for all my pc use.

Did this issue start after you made changes to your site? Maybe there's something that you added to your site that's creating the issue. Poking in the dark here besides what Viv stated. CC cleaner might help.

Sounds like a good idea and will certainly try it.
It just seems strange that it is only the inbuilt browser that fouls up. I will open a new user and download a clean version of VSD and see what happens.

Love the Viv avatar btw, happy memories of a great TV sitcom!!

Have already run CCleaner a few times with no change.
Will check the site for recent changes but cant think of anything likely to have caused a problem.

Thanks for the ideas, will post on here if I make a major discovery that solves problem.