XP Slow to start up

Hi,

I run Win XP Pro SP2 on AMD Duron XP, 1100 MHz, 375 MB RAM, SAMSUNG SP4002H (40 GB, 7200 RPM, Ultra-ATA/100)...

Hope that's enough info.

I have been running XP for a while now and I know my PC isn't top spec at all, but I never had any problems with it until recently.

When ever I turn on my PC everything is fine until just after what I think is called the Splash (where it has the black bar with the the three blue things on it)... Ater that my screen goes blank, and my monitior clicks... It stays like that for about 10 secs then the mouse cursor appears... The screen is still black... Then about a minute later (and a couple of cursor changes to egg timer and both cursor and egg timer...) the screen turns blue... then about 20 secs later it changes and says windows is loading your settings... then straight after it says welcome. For about 3 mins... Then the Creative Logo falshes up and then everything is fine....

I don't know if this is related but my video play back is slow, and some programes take a long time to start up... I ran all of the spy-ware and ad-ware programs like it said in the tutorial but got nothing...

Sorry if I waffled a bit, but this is so annoying... Anyone know what to do?

 

Welcome to Major Geeks!
Mine was doing something similar about a month ago. I'm pretty sure it was after I had a brain fart and tried Norton Utilities 2003 for the last time. I ran windoctor, which I believe screws up the registry if you aren't super careful.
Anyway, I ended up having to do a format and reinstall. If you have Nortons, by chance, that is what you should do. And whatever you do, don't put Nortons back on.