[Gtkradiant] First time running 1.6, takes over a minute/fails to start up.

[Nerius Landys]

>
> I've been getting numerous reports (and have experienced it myself
> first hand) of ZeroRadiant hanging or taking over a minute to start up
> for the first time. Users are faced with the command-line window for a
> period of time before the rest of the interface loads up. The problem
> does not repeat itself with subsequent start-ups, it pauses for the
> first time only.
>

I too have experienced this issue.  Windows 7 32 bit.  It seems to
have started happening recently after service pack 1.

> Users are reporting the issue on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows
> 7 on both 32 and 64-bit systems.
>
> I am unsure about the cause for this issue, if it's a bug or if
> ZeroRadiant is just setting up for the first time. If the latter, some
> kind of loading message would be beneficial so the user doesn't think
> the program has hanged.
>

I tried adding a printf() at the top of main(), but control does not
even reach that point when the app pauses.  I think the pause is a
Windows thing - maybe it's analyzing DDLs it has to load to make sure
they don't contain viruses?  If the printf() won't print anything
until after the pause is completed, I don't know of a smart way to let
the user know to just hold on.

Interesting is that once I've waited a minute for Radiant to launch,
if I try it again even with newer builds it does not seem to wait, or
at least not as long.

We need a Windows expert to diagnose what is going on here.  For the
most part Windows is a black box and I'm opposed to the idea of
studying black boxes when better white boxes are available instead.