Taskbar takes too long to load.

Hi!

This is my first post here, and I was wondering how I can fix the following problem:

When I boot up the computer into Windows XP, I get the welcome screen right away. However, in the last few days, it has taken 3-4 minutes for the taskbar and icons to appear on the desktop. How can I find out what is causing this and more importantly, how to fix the problem! Thanks!

 

Hi and welcome to the BBS,

Watch the Hard Disk Drive (HDD) LED. From my experience, it might be due to background programs loading, but more likely to be the antivirus or other security programs doing checks or the RAM is being overfilled with startup programs and they are then being put into virtual memory on the HDD.

Go to Control Panel -> Internet Options and delete the temporary internet files. Do a search of the C: drive for the term "temp ". Check inside Temp folders and delete all their contents.

You can go to Task Manager (Ctrl + Alt + Del) -> Performance tab, as soon as you reach the desktop, and watch the figures for Available compared to Total Physical Memory. Less than about 40% available would make me start thinking there was too much loading at startup.

A program loading at startup may be having trouble. Don't discount that it may be due to malware or a badly written program.

We could check a Hijack This log for you, but it won't tell us if a "normal" startup program is malfunctioning.

Matt