Windows takes a long time to load, no startbar?

Question

I have an odd problem with my computer - it takes a very long time to boot up, and when it does there is no start bar and double-clicking doesn't work. It also freezes constantly.

I rebooted in safemode, and it works fine, except for the fact that it's in safe mode. I attempted to follow the directions of some online forums, for instance: go to start-run-msconfig and un-check anything there that you don't want. Unfortunately, I couldn't see anything I didn't want.

Does anyone have any ideas as to what it could be?

Answer 1

First things first - we would need to know what version of the Windows OS you're using.

Two - just because everything you have loading on startup (via MSConfig or Startup folder under the start menu) is something you want doesn't mean it's all necessary. The only true necessities are a Firewall, Anti-Virus, and possibly some printer and audio software required to make them work properly with your system (though, this is very rare). Things like messaging clients and shortcut bars, etc, should all be disabled to optimize startup times.

You should check your task manager to see what is using up so much resources on startup. And, depending on your OS, check the Event Viewer to see if any errors may give a hint as to why your start bar isn't loading. It's possible that it's just hidden off-screen - but if not, you should be able to use the New Task (Run...) command in the task manager to re-start the explorer.exe process. This would generally reload your desktop and start menu properly.

Of course, it's always possible that you have some sort of malware infection. Run your virus scanner in safe mode (if you have one) as well as some other anti-malware utilities. Many are free and you can find them easily enough. But, a word of warning. AntiVirus utilities should be used by themselves. Having more than one can ruin your system. But, other anti-malware tools such as SpyBot and AdAware can be used together without issue.

That's all the info I can give for now until more details are given. Good luck.

Answer 2

take it to the next step, go to safe mode with networking, see if you are still getting faster response. it could be that your lan set up is having a problem, also look into the event viewer - system and see if svchost.dll is throwing out problems, and also see if you can get into task manager, processes, and see if svchost.dll is taking up more than 30KB of memory. if it is, it could also point back to a lan problem. saw a customer the other day that was locked up in a windows update loop,the constant restarting just kept the loop going.

Answer 3

The above suggestions are good, but I'd just like to add that you might want to go into safe mode and run a complete anti-virus and anti-spyware scan.

Answer 4

this could be a protracted shot. verify to work out if XP is loading in PIO mode. purely like it does in risk-free Mode. suitable click My laptop and click on properties. click on the Hardware tab and click on device supervisor. click the + sign next to IDE ATA Controllers. suitable click accepted Channel and click properties. click on more desirable Settings tab. under device 0, flow Mode might desire to be set to DMA if available. modern flow Mode might desire to examine extremely DMA accompanied via a type a million,2,3,4 or 5. If the present flow mode is PIO persist with the link from Microsoft to alter it back to DMA.