slow launch of quick launch icons on startup

i am using xp pro and i only display 3 icons in the quick launch area of the taskbar. they are a/v, speaker vol, and firewall. these used to show up within seconds of the desktop being displayed. however. the a/v icon pops up right away but the speaker and firewall icons wont show up for 2-3 minutes. during this time, the machine s usable (slightly slow). now i use Codestuff Starter v5.6.1.19 to control my startup items and only the 3 previously mentioned are included there. when this first started, i did a restore from when it was good and that didnt help. i am not adverse to a format if necessary. i need your help/advice and tkz in advance, aloha

 

For clarification, the Quick Launch area is to the imediate right of the Start button (if its enabled). At the far right is the System Tray (with the clock). Are you saying it got slower after you installed Code Starter and can't get the speed back?

 

the "problem area" i refer to is the area immediately left of the clock. and codestuff starter did nothing, i just mentioned it because i didnt want a lecture about not to use msconfig!!! i really dont know what precipitated this prob, that is why i ask the experts. i have over 35 years of D.P. experience. i have run 8 malware scanners, my a/v and all show clean, when i look at 'process explorer' (better than taskmgr) it shown no indication of a cpu hog or memory probs. i have also run memory diags and disk diags and they show no probs either. so here is the summary...about 10 days ago the boot process changed - for no apparent reason - now when the desktop shows up after the boot process, i get 1 icon (anti-virus) then my speaker and software firewall show up in 2-3 minutes...during this time the machine is a bit slow - when i launch process explorer, it shows only about 2/3 of the normal tasks running, after all 3 icons have displayed, so are all normal startup processes and the machine runs great until next startup. if you can help, plz do!!!