NetSurf very slow to load on RPCEmu

I find NetSurf (3.8 and 3.9) very slow to load on my RPCEmu setup (0.9.1/5.24 on Win7 laptop): like 170 seconds (typically) before the icon appears on the iconbar. I presume it is scanning my fonts, of which I admittedly have a great number (2658 files and approx. 40MB’s worth in !Fonts), but in previous versions this happened on the initial launch of NetSurf only and not subsequently. Also, it is not an issue on my Pi running the same OS/NetSurf versions. Has anyone else encountered this peculiarity?

EDIT-LATER: the fonts are definitely implicated: I renamed my existing !Fonts directory and reinstalled the basic HardDisc4 fonts (36 files vs. 2658). Result: NetSurf loads in 7 secs. But that still leaves the question why the additional fonts have to be scanned every time.

Running from HostFS and having a Malware Scanner active I presume? I had several “interesting” effects where I/O speed especially on many small files was badly affected by the likes of Kaspersky.

Yes to HostFS, certainly. As to anti malware, I am running McAfee AV software and that is most likely scanning system activity, so thanks for the suggestion. I may turn off scanning (if possible) and see if that helps.