Performance when working directory is slow network drive

[Mark Hadfield]

My system is Python 2.0 on Windows 2000, Compaq PIII 800 MHz.

I issue the following command from a command prompt and see how long it
takes

    python -c "import os"

If the working directory is on one of my hard drives the elapsed times is
approx 0.1 seconds; if I then to a slow network drive (a Samba share to a
Unix machine that mounts another machine's disks via NFS!) it takes 2
seconds.

Importing other modules does not show such a drastic penalty.

What is it doing all that time and is there any way of telling it not to?

---
Mark Hadfield
m.hadfield at niwa.cri.nz  http://katipo.niwa.cri.nz/~hadfield
National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research