help! logging on takes ages/need to log on twice

[Roger]

I wonder if any of you XP gurus can help me with a
problem I have logging into WinXP home edition. Each time
I log on the whole process seems to take ages. Even
though the desktop appears instantaneously, it takes a
couple of minutes for the various items on the task bar
to load and then not all the ones that are supposed to,
especially in the system tray. The funny thing is that if
I log off, and then log on again, everything is hunky
dory and all the required stuff is loaded rapidly. Seems
a tad excessive to me to have to log on twice for
everything to be working!

I am relatively computer savvy and I'm sure there's a
simple solution somewhere, but this one has me stumped. I
suspect it has something to do with user profiles and
accounts but that's as far as it goes.

For your information I am running WinXP Home with
SP1 ,NETv1.1 and XP PowerToys v2.10.0.0 installed, and
the only account I have installed (according to "User
Accounts" in Control Panel) is for myself as
administrator (guest account is off) using my user name.
No passwords are required for logging on. The funny thing
is that the command run "control userpasswords2" shows
FOUR users: administrator, ASPNET, Guest and myself. What
the heck?

Any solutions to this problem? Your suggestions and
assistance with this matter will be greatly appreciated
and will stop me tearing my hair out each time I try and
log on.

Many thanks and merry Christmas to you all.

Roger

 

[R. McCarty]

Two things - All those accounts you listed are correct
for the software you listed.

This boot time issue seems to be the "Big" thing on the NG
right now. Let me see if I can clearly put it in perspective.
Network initialization is going to take the biggest slice of
most users boot sequence. Most PC's now come with a
NIC (Network Interface Card) standard. However, if you
only connect to the web with a modem the NIC is still
going to initialize and try to find the network. So if you do
not have Broadband the best solution is to go to Dev Mgr
and "Disable" the NIC. This will effectively disable the
Local Area Connection. The PC will now boot without
seeking a DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol)
computer to assign it an IP Address. This might shorten
the boot sequence by up to 45 seconds.

If you have Broadband and a Router, you can shorten the
boot cycle by disabling the DHCP server on the router &
manually assigning an IP address to your client PC's. This
is somewhat complicated and the instructions would be to
lengthy to put in a posting.

Next, Windows XP starts a number of Services that are
not really required. SP2 for XP is going to strip down the
Services to address Security issues. Services have some
dependencies. In other words a specific service cannot
run unless another Service is started before it. This can hang
boot, if a service tries to Start and it's dependency service
is not running. Essentially, the service will eventually time-out.
These services include Anti-Virus and Firewall software.

Finally, Program Startups - All the little icons down by the
time display. Unfortunately, they are loaded from all kinds
of locations (Start Folders, Registry,etc). Most users would
be amazed at what programs load from the Registry Run
Keys ( And a majority of them are unnecessary).

This post is not intended to be instructions on how to shorten
boot time, but just some FYI on why Windows take a long
time to boot.

As for my own machine, I have only two Registry Run keys,
two programs in the Start folder (Cookie Control & Media
Player [Minimized]}, Norton NIS 2004 and two USB2
External units. I have Broadband with a MS router.

From pushing the Power button to a usable desktop takes
31 Seconds. Point being you can streamline Boot time but
it takes some work