Quick Boot Up, but slow to start programs.

[SnailUK]

I am running XP-Pro as a clean install on a new 7,200 RPM 60 GB drive, AMD Athlon 1000 processor, 512 MB of RAM.

The system boots reasonably quickly (40 seconds) to the point where it asks for your user name and then 5 secs to bring up the desktop wallpaper plus a further 15 secs to finish displaying all the icons and the Office Toolbar.

However, once everything seems ready and the mouse pointer is there, if you click on anything on the decktop, or select "start" it tales a further 65 seconds before anything will happen! It just sits there and appears to be doing nothing!

If I wait for 65 secs when it askes for the username, I can then start programs immediatly once the desktop has finished loading, suggesting it is not confined to this one profile.

Does anybody have any ideas?

 

[deecee]

check your startup and all programs that are running on startup get a preogram callded regcleaner it will show everything that is runnig at startup....it could be your antivirus...I had this problem but turned out i had like 6 spyware programs that were on startup and they werent in my startup list but were in the registry and it was throwing everything off....so get regcleaner and ad-aware and run adaware first then clean out your registry
sleep is good

 

[linney]

Try disabling any unrequired services that are running in background.

http://www.blkviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

Look especially at the Indexing Service.



HOW TO: Set Performance Options (Q308417)

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q308/4/17.asp

 

[Casper5678]

I have the same problem, but its only related to one user. If i log in as a different user the problem is not there. What about you? I'm currently going throught that profile (c:\doc & settings\username) to see what i find, i guess it could be spy-ware, or the registry. Any new info on your end?

 

[PCtechie]

Had similar things occur in that strange problems occuring with one user, but not on another user on the same windows 2k machine. Quick solution, rename current user, create new user.

 

[Casper5678]

Yes, PCtechie that would work. But we have found the real problem. We use AVG anti-virus from

http://www.grisoft.com.

As soon as we uninstalled that program the problem went away on the problem user. We reinstalled and the problem came back. So that is our problem. SnailUK are you running an anti-virus?

 

[SnailUK]

Hi Guys, thanks for all the suggestions.
I have been through the system as suggested by deecee and can find no offending spy ware or other programs. Indexing is not activated.

I have had a further problem since then that caused windows not to load at all so have been spending (too much) time sorting that out, not related I think.

The only anti virus I run is Norton System works 2002. I tried with that set so it did not load at start-up, but no differance. I have not yet tried with a different user profile, because I do not want to turn Windows off till the weekend in case I have a problem starting it again! I will try them and let you all know how I get on. I will also try disabling various services then as well.

Wish me luck!