takes minutes from login to desktop - why?

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regaldozer

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I have a Dell Dimension 4500 512mb ram pentium 4 60g HD. Running XP pro. I have 5 different user logons on this machine. when I logon as any user it takes 2 or 3 minutes to "load personal settings" . When it gets to the users desktop it runs fine. Any idea why it takes so long?
 
could be a lot of reasons, bloatware/adware, software loaded specifically for a user, not enough RAM for resources being loaded, etc...
 
regaldozer said:
I have a Dell Dimension 4500 512mb ram pentium 4 60g HD. Running XP pro. I have 5 different user logons on this machine. when I logon as any user it takes 2 or 3 minutes to "load personal settings" . When it gets to the users desktop it runs fine. Any idea why it takes so long?

Start - Run - type msconfig. Disable anything you don't want to run at startup.
You could also look at Services. Some of the items set to run automatically could be set to manual. But Google it first; some need to be automatic.
 
You say you are running XP Pro.. a few additional questions for you:

Are you running in a domain environment? Are the users you are loading local or domain users? If you use a domain, do you have any GPOs applied to the machine? Or any firewalls present on the network? Especially that may prevent communication with the PDC?

Also, to see what you run in startup from MSConfig or Hijack this would be useful. Some startup programs (esp. drivers or virus scanners) insist on trying to load before the user interface. Identifying, reinstalling or removing those can quite often help. Bloatware like adware/spyware can indeed increase this time.

When did this behavior start? Have you looked at system restore to see what sort of rollback points you have around this time, and if there were comments appended to that?

Is this behavior replicated when you use THE Administrator account? (not *an *administrator, but the system account) Does this behavior also exist in safe mode, or is it better?

Just a few questions that may lead the way to an answer...
 
Goalie said:
You say you are running XP Pro.. a few additional questions for you:

Are you running in a domain environment? Are the users you are loading local or domain users? If you use a domain, do you have any GPOs applied to the machine? Or any firewalls present on the network? Especially that may prevent communication with the PDC?

Also, to see what you run in startup from MSConfig or Hijack this would be useful. Some startup programs (esp. drivers or virus scanners) insist on trying to load before the user interface. Identifying, reinstalling or removing those can quite often help. Bloatware like adware/spyware can indeed increase this time.

When did this behavior start? Have you looked at system restore to see what sort of rollback points you have around this time, and if there were comments appended to that?

Is this behavior replicated when you use THE Administrator account? (not *an *administrator, but the system account) Does this behavior also exist in safe mode, or is it better?

Just a few questions that may lead the way to an answer...

thanks for the reply.
for your first paragraph, I am not sure what that means. this is my main machine and I have one other connected to it. they share 1 program database and share pictures.
i dont recall when this started so I thought about a system restore, but it would be a guess.
it definately happens on THE admintrator account and all user accounts.
i am going to try in safe mode then I will msconfig and try to see if i can dump some start up items. I will also check services.
I ran spybot and adaware and it did not help. i run avg and it comes up clean...
 
regaldozer said:
thanks for the reply.
for your first paragraph, I am not sure what that means. this is my main machine and I have one other connected to it. they share 1 program database and share pictures.
He meant if you are part of a bigger/complex network structure.. by what you've replied, i assume you don't, and just use a normal simple network and users (peer to peer).

Go to your Add/Remove programs as an admin and write down here what you have.

look at when you thought this started to happen and see if you can remember what programs were installed or if any system changes was made at that time.

Have a run at this: https://www.techspot.com/vb/topic53669.html

If you suspect malware etc.: https://www.techspot.com/community/...lware-removal-preliminary-instructions.58138/

Should give you something to do..
 
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