Delayed (5 min) start of some programs with right click explorer freez

I'm having two problems and I suspect they are related. There are come programs that simply execute a long time after the icon is clicked. By delayed, I mean I click the .exe icon for the program and nothing happens...Then 5-10 minutes later, the program I forgot about runs. What's going on there? I also have this super annoying problem where if I right click a program, explorer freezes, sometimes even crashes. I have booted windows in safe mode and neither of these problems seem to happen. Do I really have to go through each and every third party shell extension? There's hundreds of them. I really don't want to spend all day on this because of somebody's sloppy work. A quick solution to both problems would be appreciated.