XP starts up very slowly

I'm currently trying to help out a friend with a home PC which has been frustratingly slow at start-up for a while now. I've carried out malware scans and posted the logs in the appropriate forum, but have also discovered that despite the default account (with admininstrator privileges) being "Sara", the related user folder in C:\Documents and Settings appears to have been renamed to "bethan!". Yes, that's "bethan" plus "!" .

My friend (Sara) recalls that "something went wrong" when her daughter, Bethan, attempted to create her own separate XP account. There is no "Sara" folder in Documents and Settings. Would this have any effect on the start-up? Can i simply rename the folder back to "Sara" with no serious effects?

Added to that, i can see that the daughter has also installed Windows Live Messenger Plus and some optional skins for this program. I get the impression that this is not a good idea. Any opinions?

The PC as it stands actually runs reasonably well - apart from the irritatingly long start-up. I'm not aware of issues with web-browsing or running applications. Any help would be gratefully received

MarkW.

 

Hi Mark,

It reads like the original account was bethan!; when an account is renamed in XP, the original folder names are kept IIRC. I don't know if a simple renaming of the folders would cause any issues or not, sorry.

Check in Device Manager the transfer speeds for the IDE channels/Devices.

MessengerPlus is ok - BUT - there's a default 'optional' sponsor program which is definately to be avoided at all costs, it's usually listed in ADD/Remove within the MSGPlus installer.