Windows XP Problems (Only 2!)

[benjaminosauras]

Over the past few months I have been having a couple of problems with my 'wonderful' XP operating system.

The Windows loading screen prior to the logon screen often loads for minutes, my HDD LED goes off and the loading bar still goes, and goes, and goes. Eventually it does proceed to the logon screen but there is no way it should take that long. This is a completely random happening, there is no knowing if it will happen or if it will load properly.

Second problem is that when I do eventually log on, every now and then, my taskbar will not load anything, when I hover over it I will get the loading cursor, no icons will appear in the taskbar, however, the applications that are configured to run on startup all start fine.

Any help in this matter would be much appreciated.

 

[N3051M]

i've had this happen to me a couple of times.. never knew what it was caused by though. As mysterious it came for me, it also disappeared.. (due to me poking and prodding the PC too much).

- Try running CCleaner.
- check for malware?

provided this issue was recurring, you could try the following..
- Try adding a password on your login (one letter password should do) and getting your PC to login, so it loads your background/startup apps when you log in, not when windows is starting.
- Try take out any USB or other devices you can do without while booting
- Try removing unnecessary startup apps by disabling the "start when windows starts" box in the application (eg. messenger, itunes etc) except for security apps.
- if all else fails: start>run type in msconfig
>go to Diagnostic startup and reboot. If that fixes it, its time to start hunting!
>go back to msconfig and enter selective startup, enable one of the checkboxes and reboot. Repeat until you find that its giving you the symptoms again, then uncheck that box and go to the respective tab, and repeat the tick-reboot-check cycle. You may need to do this a couple of times to find out what services or item is causing it, if there are multiples to the cause.

 

[benjaminosauras]

thanks very much for the advice, ive got passwords on all the accounts now and that seems to speed things up a little.

But the joy of windows, I installed CCleaner, restarted and when I restarted I didn't get the normal log on screen, I got the one like on a network, where u have the login box and you enter your username and password. Have no idea how to get rid of it.......

And also, since that restart, msconfig won't start.....

Get an error saying cannot find msconfig.exe etc etc

Oh i love windows.....

 

[raybay]

You may be perhaps headed to a Windows XP repair install.

 

[alidabiri]

do you have norton? because it slows things sooooooooooo bad.
you can always get a fresh copy msconfig.exe with repair install as suggested. you may also want to run system file cheker.
SFC /scannow
this will check all systems files and will replace/repair all corrupt system files.

 

[N3051M]

when I restarted I didn't get the normal log on screen, I got the one like on a network, where u have the login box and you enter your username and password. Have no idea how to get rid of it.......

ahh.. this was kinda expected (50/50 chance really)
>Go to Start and click the picture next to your name (or control panel>User Accounts) and click Home if you used the Start menu shortcut.
>click the option "Change the way Users Log on or Off"
>check the Welcome Screen Box

That should bring you back the familiar blueish screen with names in a list type of thing, rather than the login box.

Did you run any of the cleaning modules in CCleaner yet?
If yes, which ones?

If no, run the cleaner with everything ticked, minus anything under the Advanced tree (untick any of the Advanced ones under the windows tab if they're ticked, unless you know whats what) and the Registry issues cleaner, making sure you create a backup when it asks you to.

Do the sfc /scannow command as alidabri suggested.

Did you do a malware scan? There are some issues with certain malware that can stuff up the msconfig and task manager utilities.. post a HiJackThis log here and i'll have a quick look at it, after reading this:
https://www.techspot.com/vb/topic50981.html