My Shared Folder/When Opened/Locks Up

My o/s is Win XP Home Edition and my HD drive capacity is 2.8 Gigahertz with about 40 Gigs left. I am on a cable connection with Zone Alarm(free edition) and AVG(free edition).

My Shared Folder has swelled to a whopping 27.5 GB and is full of homemade videos. Whenever I select it and click on it to open...it opens but then my my mouse pointer freezes so it won't let me click on a movie to play.

My first and only thought on this is that I let the file get too big without realizing it. I then hit Cntrl. Alt. & Delete and it tells me it is not responding so I end the process. I'm at your mercy...I have no idea what to try next. Thank you in advance for all your help. I appreciate every single one of you out there.

 

Hi ,is this a shared folder on a network,on which you are currently linked or are you accessing the folder directly from the computer you are using.

EDIT forget what i just wrote ,for optimal performance its recommended that you have between 10-20% free harddrive space,is there any way you can free up some space?