diff -r 70132524f97c openide.filesystems/src/org/openide/filesystems/LocalFileSystem.java
--- a/openide.filesystems/src/org/openide/filesystems/LocalFileSystem.java	Tue Mar 24 13:58:11 2009 +0100
+++ b/openide.filesystems/src/org/openide/filesystems/LocalFileSystem.java	Tue Mar 24 15:52:29 2009 +0100
@@ -679,6 +679,7 @@
             fs.markUnimportant(name);
         }
     }
+        static int cnt;
 
     /** This class adds new virtual attribute "java.io.File".
      * Because of the fact that FileObjects of LocalFileSystem are convertable
@@ -702,6 +703,8 @@
                 return lfs.getFile(name);
             }
 
+//            System.err.printf("     counts: %d name: %s attr: %s\n", cnt++, name, attrName);
+
             return super.readAttribute(name, attrName);
         }
     }
diff -r 70132524f97c openide.filesystems/src/org/openide/filesystems/MultiFileObject.java
--- a/openide.filesystems/src/org/openide/filesystems/MultiFileObject.java	Tue Mar 24 13:58:11 2009 +0100
+++ b/openide.filesystems/src/org/openide/filesystems/MultiFileObject.java	Tue Mar 24 15:52:29 2009 +0100
@@ -717,7 +717,14 @@
     * @param attrName name of the attribute
     * @return appropriate (serializable) value or <CODE>null</CODE> if the attribute is unset (or could not be properly restored for some reason)
     */
+    private static int cnt;
     public Object getAttribute(String attrName) {
+        if (getFileSystem().isDefault()) {
+            int prev = LocalFileSystem.cnt;
+//            System.err.printf("query %d for %s\n", ++cnt, getPath());
+            LocalFileSystem.cnt = prev;
+        }
+
         // Performance optimization (avoid calling getPath() too many times):
         return getAttribute(attrName, getPath());
     }
@@ -797,7 +804,9 @@
             // could only have been made on a writable filesystem to begin with.
             // Could skip all RO FSs but then multi-user installs would not work
             // quite right.
-            if ((prefixattr != null) && !(systems[i] instanceof XMLFileSystem)) {
+            if ((prefixattr != null) && !(systems[i] instanceof XMLFileSystem)
+                    && !systems[i].isReadOnly()
+            ) {
                 fo = systems[i].getRoot();
 
                 Object o = getAttribute(fo, prefixattr, ""); // NOI18N