XP painfully slow to start - Access Connections

I have a mysterious problem with my XP laptop. Since a) installing the latest windows updates and b) using Picasa 3.6 to look through dozens of GB of photos for faces, it now takes ages (first time: 45mins, second time: 10 mins) to get from login to a populated desktop. The whole time the hard drive light is on.

I am also experiencing odd freezing of the UI - in a context menu, or trying to start Access Connections, the window may freeze and no longer redraw until I eventually kill it off with the task manager (which may also take several minutes to respond). Other things seem fine; Firefox is working as usual, for example, although the first time it took 30 minutes until the WiFi was recognised :/

I have tried uninstalling the dodgy windows update, which has not helped. Could it be Picasa slowing me down? if so, is there a service I should stop or something? Any ideas would be much appreciated!

Joel in Gö

Posted 2010-02-14T00:40:07.130

Reputation: 973

Answers

check your event log.
use Bootvis to find the culprit(s).
use Autoruns to disable the programs causing the delay (and other unwanted/unnecessary programs).

Molly7244

Posted 2010-02-14T00:40:07.130

Reputation:

Thanks; How do I check the event log? – Joel in Gö – 2010-02-14T00:52:55.887

oh, ok, it tells you how here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308427

– Joel in Gö – 2010-02-14T00:55:49.757

And you can use Process Monitor or Process Explorer (both from Sysinternals) to discover which process is using the disk so much. – njd – 2010-02-14T00:58:57.010

According to the event log, SQLServer is doing all kinds of crap. I never knowingly installed the damn thing; it may have come with VisualStudio, but has never caused trouble before... – Joel in Gö – 2010-02-14T01:09:56.687

@Joel in Gö - something must have triggered it going berserk. – None – 2010-02-14T01:35:09.010

Bootvis won't successfully run; it either claims that a com library has not been started, or if not, it can't open the logfile. – Joel in Gö – 2010-02-15T23:38:24.767

The answer was actually to ininstall ThinkVantage Access Connections (the Thinkpad WiFi utility). No idea why it started playing up so badly.

The first answer is more useful in general though, so I won't tick this as the accepted answer.

Joel in Gö

Posted 2010-02-14T00:40:07.130

Reputation: 973

1Nothing wrong with accepting your own answer as correct if it solved the problem :) – None – 2010-02-15T23:40:49.503

You might actually edit your original question, since poor old Picasa doesn't seem to be the culprit. :) – None – 2010-02-15T23:45:17.763

good point =:o) – Joel in Gö – 2010-02-16T07:43:15.910