XP startup problem

Bill Ford · Post by **Bill Ford** » 17 Jul 2004 2:13 pm

XP pro, at startup takes about 2 minutes after icons are displayed before the system is opperable, I have reinstalled windows CD,same problem....Any ideas,I have timed it,2 minutes +/- 10 seconds every time,after that,everything is normal.

Bill

Jim Peters · Post by **Jim Peters** » 17 Jul 2004 8:47 pm

Bill I had the same problem. It had to do with the dsl modem, I turn my modem off on a reboot until windows is up and running. I hope this helps. I've never had any other problems. Jim P

Bill Ford · Post by **Bill Ford** » 18 Jul 2004 5:33 am

Jim,
I have dialup, just installed a new modum,thought that may be it, did help a lot on speed and connect, did system restore before I reinstalled windows, that didn't help,also went to Ms website and installed latest patches and upgrades, some of the other programs are working better,oh well. We're supposed to get cable dsl in November,I'm gonna try to be the first customer. Thanks

Bill[This message was edited by Bill Ford on 18 July 2004 at 06:36 AM.]

Doug Ferguson · Post by **Doug Ferguson** » 23 Jul 2004 10:37 am

I honestly don't believe that the modem or dsl is your problem. Look at your system tray (usually on the bottom right of the screen where the time is displayed) and watch that location while your computer boots up. If it load more than 4 or 5 icons in the system tray, your computer may just be taking a long time loading these programs that run in the background, and even sorting out conflicts between a couple of them as it loads. I have gone in and turned off tons of this stuff on computers that were taking several minutes to finish booting up and made a whale of a difference in boot up time, and how the computer performs after it finishes booting. If you have Windows 98 or Me, or XP, you can click on Start, then on Run, and type msconfig and click on ok. It will load the System Configuration Utility. Click on the startup tab and it will show you everything that is loading and running in the background. You can turn off a bunch of the startup items listed there by clicking on the X box and unchecking them. You can go to this web page http://www.windowsstartup.com/wso/detail.php?id=4040 and click on search. Type in the name of the items listed in msconfig and it will tell you what they are, and if they are necessary to have running. Then click on apply, ok, and it will give you an option to exit and reboot computer or exit without rebooting. The changes won't take place until you reboot the computer. Hope this helps!

John Kaigley · Post by **John Kaigley** » 29 Jul 2004 7:32 pm

Norton AntiVirus '03 & '04 have been known to cause this with IE 6 SP1 Go into internet properties, advanced tab, then scroll to the bottom. Under the security heading, uncheck the box reading "Check for publishers certifacte revocation" This is also sometimes the cause of repeated attempts to connect to a dial-up account.
Hope this helps.

John Kaigley · Post by **John Kaigley** » 29 Jul 2004 7:40 pm

After a little more thought, you may want to run a full virus scan, too. Some of the new viruses (Sasser, Blaster) May have snuck in while you were doing the patches from Microsoft. And as above, MSCONFIG is always a good place to start. On XP, for testing purposes, you can disable all items in stratup group.

C Dixon · Post by **C Dixon** » 30 Jul 2004 7:13 am

Mega dittos Doug Ferguson.

I have an XP home edition. And from day one, the deskop icons would load very fast. In fact at first I was duped into believing how fast this XP is over Windows 95.

However after the newness wore off, I began to realize that what Microsoft probably did was to lull its customers and sales reps into believing it was a very fast computer when in reality it is just as slow (if not slower) than its predecessor.

What is hapening is:

It appears to boot up very fast, but in no way is the computer ready to do anything. All the progammed applications that need to start up during the boot process are simply being loaded one a time, while one must simply sit there and wait. You cannot even launch the speaker icon in the tray bar. This should be a tip how slow it is.

On mine the last thing to load is Internet Explorer. And it takes just under 4 minutes from the time the computer is turned on before I can launch IE.

I would imagine if I removed all the things I really want on startup, it might be a bit faster. But then who needs it?

Yet to the onlooker, it would appear "it is long since been ready to go".

Me thinks Microsoft pulled a P. T. Barnum on us,

carl

John Kaigley · Post by **John Kaigley** » 30 Jul 2004 5:18 pm

Just had an HP with WIN XP in my shop. Going from 128MB RAM to 256MB cut startup time by probably 50%. Just a seat of the pants time, didn't actually time it. Much more dramatic than other Windows versions. ME --- short for MISTAKE !!
Very seldom see WIN XP boxes with less than 256MB so it was a real eye opener.

Doug Ferguson · Post by **Doug Ferguson** » 31 Jul 2004 9:05 am

John, you nailed it! I have noticed many times that adding 128 to an xp machine that only had 128 and bringing it to 256 really kicked it in the pants! It's a pretty big bang for the buck too. You do that, and remove all the fluff that is running in the background that's not needed, and you might think you have a new machine!

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Fergy, MSA Classic D12

Doug Ferguson · Post by **Doug Ferguson** » 31 Jul 2004 9:10 am

People have brought me bran new HP machines, still in the box and asked me to set the machine up for them and it is unreal how much garbage is running in the background. A bran new 2.6 p4 machine right out of the box ran like a 486! I generally slap a stick of ram in them and remove junk with msconfig and they end up performing real well. It just blows my mind that computer mfgr's will do that. I'd think you would want the best first impression of your product that someone just spent $600 for!

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Fergy, MSA Classic D12

John Kaigley · Post by **John Kaigley** » 31 Jul 2004 5:02 pm

Hey Doug, I know what you mean about junk in the background. Most of them even "Phone Home" and slow down the internet connection.

Bill Ford · Post by **Bill Ford** » 31 Jul 2004 5:30 pm

OK..restarted in safe mode, everything worked imidiately,went to internet prop and unchecked,
"Check for publishers certifacte revocation" , also removed "stuff" from system tray.Still 2 min on startup,MS Streets and Trips works @ startup,Solitare works(thats how I use the 2 min waiting time). I did install Wnconnect trial version,don't remember if it was doing it before, think I may uninstall it and see,it doesen't work right anyway,locks up after about 30 min online..

Thanks for all the help and suggestions, Bill

Bill Ford · Post by **Bill Ford** » 31 Jul 2004 6:25 pm

YEEEEEEHAAAA,,,fixed,I hope,

In control panel/network connections/local area connections, was enabled, I disabled it,system working ok on startup..don't know what may have turned it on,maybe when I installed WM,also uninstalled Wmconnect first,didn't help. Gonna give WM another try(lac) may have had it confused.

Thanks again for all the help..Bill [This message was edited by Bill Ford on 31 July 2004 at 07:28 PM.]

Gere Mullican · Post by **Gere Mullican** » 1 Aug 2004 7:21 am

Bill, I have used WMconnect for over a year now and for me it works great. I always leave my computer on but when I do have to shut it down and turn it back on, it boots up pretty fast. I have XP Home and 256 MB. Wally World internet is a lot better for me at $9.94 a month than MSN or any of the others. I dont particularly like their browser page so I use IE a lot too.
Gere

Doug Ferguson · Post by **Doug Ferguson** » 2 Aug 2004 7:40 am

I really can't think of a reason why having local area network enabled would cause it to take longer to boot. It seems like every new computer that has XP Pro or Home on it has the LAN enabled. I guess they assume you are going to use DSL or Cable internet and not dial up.
Asside from maybe the operating system XP Pro checking to see if you are on a network and whether or not it needs to log in to the network and then going on with the boot up process, I can't think of anything that would make it slower. I might have to test that on my laptop. At the office, we're on an NT network with a domain controller, so we have to log in with a username and password that is controlled by one of the servers (domain controller). But, that login screen pops up before it even starts loading the desktop and stuff, so I really am lost here...

Bill Ford · Post by **Bill Ford** » 2 Aug 2004 9:36 am

Doug,
My computer guru was over yesterday and said basicly the same as you, he said maybe it was trying to connect where there was no service,and it took that long to decide that there was nothing there.

The way I found it was by chance,looked in net connections,and saw it enabled and knowing I didn't have/need it,disabled it. One of the simple rules,if you know it can un-done,it's usually safe to try it.