Thanks Sharon, I had run defrag before accepting the downloads, and the
system was fine, I have also removed the Prefetch files as I thought this
might also be a problem. But it still hangs, I removed as many of the start
loads aswell. The problem occurred straight after the XP sp2 upgrade. Any
other ideas.???
Depending on how much of SP2 was downloaded and installed (varies on a per
machine basis if using AutoUpdate), it's very possible that another defrag
is needed. May want to do a little SP2 cleanup beforehand. The following
article by Alex Nichol is a good guideline:
http://forum.aumha.org/viewtopic.php?t=7265
Defrag uses the Prefetch folders to optimize the hard drive. I know that
quite a few folks post that removing the folder contents now and then seems
to help but I've never seen that benefit on my systems. No harm in deleting
though. The folder will rebuild but it will take a while for optimization
based on usage - and the corresponding performance increase - to take
place.
A defrag will only help overall performance moderately and startup a little
less than that. If you are getting a straight up hang at startup, there may
be other things going on. Perhaps a driver or startup program that's not
quite right for SP2.
Use Start> Run> eventvwr.msc to check Event Viewer for any errors or
warnings during the startup time frame. Double click items to read a more
detailed report.
You can experiment with startup software - disable all unnecessary items.
Restart. If startup is faster, start adding things back one at a time with
restarts in between. If you suddenly get a hang, the last item added is the
one that needs to be addressed. Check for an update or try reinstalling the
app in question. You could repeat the steps blocking non-Microsoft services
if necessary.
