Slow boot up.

OK sorry, maybe not boot up, But opening programs?
Hi All
I have a friend that emailed me with this problem....

"I have trouble with my desktop booting up. Tonight I started with my mail and the hour glass lit up with the cursor and 5 seconds later disappeared with no results. So I tried internet explorer with the same results. I tried control, alt, delete to see what was running also with no results. I tried my crossword puzzle game and immediately had it come up. Almost 3 1/2 minutes into the game everything else came up. Could this be my hard drive telling me it is dying? I've ran spybot , trend, and all in safe mode and nothing is showing itself. "

He says it's been going on for a few months and is slowly getting worse as time goes by.
I checked his HJT log, No malware or viruses.

Can some one give me any clues?

Thanks
Geri

 

After everything does appear, can he repeat the slowness in accessing Internet Explorer, or Task Manager, etc?

I am betting that the "slowness" is restricted to startup. Obviously startup programs need to be examined not just for malware but their quantity and startup requirements. For example, how many upon startup immediately go and check to see if there are any updates for their software, or virus definitions, or whatever?

To explore the effect of startup programs at boot selectively disable them. A good tool for this is AutoRuns by Sysinternals/Microsoft. This freeware allows you to enable and disable startup items with a simple checkbox; a kind of MSCONFIG on steroids: http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Autoruns.html

Second, check that if multiple network adapters exist, that the unused adapters are disabled, not uninstalled, using Device Manager. In the alternative, give them a nonsense static IP. Figure that a failed DHCP process is going to cost you 20-30 seconds per unecessary network adapter.

Third, when was the last time the hard drive was defragmented? After defragmentation you can force the "Bootvis" type of startup optomization bdoing a Start, Run:

Rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks

(warning: this command is spacing and case sensitive). Allow about fifteen minutes to run silently in the background.

.

 

Hi Bill
WOW most of that was over my head

I did ask him this...
When was the last time you downloaded windows updates? TONIGHT

When was your last Defrag? A week ago

How long has this been happening?
A couple of months. Each time seems to get longer

If you right click on the task bar at the bottom and click Task manager does it come up? YES

I'll ask him if once they're up if the others still take a long time to open.

I know he is using a DSL connection....If that may mean any thing?

The only thing I seen in HJT would be TrendMico as far as looking for updates automatically.

I'll ask him a few more questions. and maybe get a start up list from HJT.

Geri

AutoRuns
a kind of MSCONFIG on steroids:

Your not just whistling Dixie there.
LOL