my computer is windows xp home and what it is is that recently it wont start up straight away it takes ages?

Question

my comp wont start up straight away it shuts down with no problems but wont start up ,i dont know why once its up and running its perfect ,do u know whats causing this problem please ,im not that much of an expert so if you can tell me in an easy way i should understand what u tell me thank you

Answer 1

From your description of the problem, I'm not sure exactly why your computer is taking a long time to start. What stage of the start up takes ages? The windows loading screen? Loading the desktop? Before that?

The previous answerer was right - run a full virus scan and adware scan (use adaware - it's the best by far : http://www.download.com/3000-2144-10045910.html ).

If it is taking ages to load the desktop, then hit Start->run, and type 'msconfig' then hit return. On the tabs at the top of the window that pops up, click on 'startup'. You will see a big list of items with checkboxes - these are all the programs that are run when windows boots. Look at them one-by-one. Uncheck any that you:
1. Know what they are and don't need them to start when the machine does
2. Don't know what they are

None of these programs are essential to the computer starting properly, but you may want to keep some like your virus scanner, any firewalls that you have and maybe MSN messenger if you like that to start when your machine does. Anything else is just dead weight.

One of these programs may be causing your computer to take ages to boot and so may be the cause of your problem.

Once you have unchecked everything you can, click apply, then ok, then restart your computer. When you boot again, you will have a message telling you that you have used the 'boot configuration utility' or something, you can safely ignore this. If you see some unwanted effect after doing this, simply run msconfig again and recheck whatever programs you need to.

Hope this sorts it out - and please, resist the temptation to format your system! There is always another way!

Answer 2

could be a number of things. like one of the other answers says, run a spyware detection program like Spybot Search & Destroy (its free and a decent program)
if that dosnt do the trick, it may be a question of having to many programs running at start up which will slow it down when u log onto windows. you can change startup applications by typing msconfig into the run menu. i suggest you ask someone who knows what theyre doing to mess with that though. if xp is genuinely running slow, not just at the start up, and it is slower than when u first your machine, it might be wise to defrag your hard disk. thats an option if running a spyware check dosn't do the trick, also its reccomended to do that often. if all else fails, back up all information and reformat your entire operating system. a system restore will most likely do absolutely nothing.

Answer 3

try format and replace your windows
it takes a long time
but if you won't do it see what yuo added recently that takes a lot of cpu or ram usage
if you have a copy to your windows by notorn goust try reload it again
and if you have not it may be a lot of help to you to get notorn ghoust so you won't have to format every while

Answer 4

When you get it running, run a anti spyware/ anti virus scan, and makje sure they are up to date, if that doesnt solve it then i suggest System restore