Very slow startup

[Ray K]

Yesterday I installed W2K over ME in a friend's computer. Works okay,
except boot time is well over two minutes, measured from the splash
screen to the appearance of all the desktop icons. At several points,
the screen is just a pure blue/green. Once, it remains that way as long
as 25 seconds, with just the mouse pointer visible and a very brief
one-time flashing of the hourglass, before the next dialog box appears.
By contrast, my computer with the same W2K boots in about a minute.

I noticed several differences between the computers.

1. In my computer, there is a WINNT directory; in her computer, it's
called WINDOWS. Regardless of the name, the contents of the folders are
similar.

2. My computer has a boot.ini file; hers doesn't. Hers has a boot.dos
file (mind doesn't), but its content is nothing like that of boot.ini.
Could/should I copy boot.ini from my computer into hers?

3. Neither computer has an msconfig file, although at one time I know
mine did. Maybe Crap Cleaner, AdAware, or Spybot removed it.


Looking at Administrative Tools/Event Viewer/Application Log, there were
four Warning entries on her computer. Typically, they read:

Detection of product '{22B90C20-2697-4790-A95E-56463563
F2EF}' feature "AV_DVP' failed during request for component
"{E39DB87F-D2CB42FF-AAA4-72E708258DC6}'

The other three Warnings also include the reference AV_DVP, so they all
have something to do with the anti-virus program (part of System
Mechanic). But the AV and firewall portion of SM, while installed, are
not running.

After writing the above, I allowed AV and the firewall to run. It didn't
shorten the boot time, even though those four Warnings disappeared. So I
can't blame the SM program.

One other point. I switch my internet cable between her computer and
mine. Her boot time is not affected by the presence or absence of the
cable connection to the ethernet card.

Thanks for your comments/suggestions.

Ray

 

[Dave Patrick]

There is no supported upgrade path from ME to Windows 2000. You must perform
a clean install.

To do a clean install, either boot the Windows 2000 install CD-Rom or setup
disks. The set of four install disks can be created from your Windows 2000
CD-Rom; change to the \bootdisk directory on the CD-Rom and execute
makeboot.exe (from dos) or makebt32.exe (from 32 bit) and follow the
prompts.

(Note: If your drive controller is not natively supported then you'll want
to boot the Windows 2000 install CD-Rom. Then *F6* very early and very
important (at setup is inspecting your system) in the setup to prevent drive
controller detection, and select S to specify additional drivers. Then later
you'll be prompted to insert the manufacturer supplied Windows 2000 driver
for your drive controller in drive "A")

Setup inspects your computer's hardware configuration and then begins to
install the Setup and driver files. When the Windows 2000 Professional
screen appears, press ENTER to set up Windows 2000 Professional.

Read the license agreement, and then press the F8 key to accept the terms of
the license agreement and continue the installation.

When the Windows 2000 Professional Setup screen appears, all the existing
partitions and the unpartitioned spaces are listed for each physical hard
disk. Use the ARROW keys to select the partitions Press D to delete an
existing partition, If you press D to delete an existing partition, you must
then press L (or press ENTER, and then press L if it is the System
partition) to confirm that you want to delete the partition. Repeat this
step for each of the existing partitions When all the partitions are deleted
press F3 to exit setup, (to avoid unexpected drive letter assignments with
your new install) then restart the pc then when you get to this point in
setup again select the unpartitioned space, and then press C to create a new
partition and specify the size (if required). Windows will by default use
all available space.

Be sure to apply SP4 and these two below to your new install before
connecting to any network. Internet included. (sasser, msblast)
http://download.microsoft.com/download/E/6/A/E6A04295-D2A8-40D0-A0C5-241BFECD095E/W2KSP4_EN.EXE
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-043.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-049.mspx

Then

Rollup 1 for Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...CF-8850-4531-B52B-BF28B324C662&displaylang=en



--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

 

[Ray K]

Thanks Dave for the lengthy, detailed instructions. Right now I'm
exhausted from yesterday's marathon, dealing with one issue after
another. I'll try your suggestions soon. The cleanest way for me to save
existing data would be to buy a new hard drive to be installed as C:,
and use the current C: drive as D:. Her computer does not have a CD
burner. Of course, I could use a large flash drive.

I tried removing 175 oddball font file from her FONTS directory; that
improved boot time a few seconds.

As I recall, there is some program that monitors the sequence and times
of each step of the boot process. I'll have to try to track it down
while going through the ordeal of a clean install.

Regards,

Ray