Very slow system start-up

[Ganz Doof]

My laptop (Win XP Pro) has become very slow to start up (more than 5 minutes
before it is ready for business) and shutting down seems to take a long time
too (about 3 minutes). What could I do to speed up the process? I have run
CCleaner and also tried to uninstall unimportant programs - but it does not
appear to help.

 

[JS]

Try Autoruns from the MS Windows SysInternals site:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/ProcessesAndThreads/Autoruns.mspx

AutoRuns will show/list all apps/etc. that load/run when you first boot ...
(the 'Boot Execute' tab),
when you logon (the 'Logon' tab) and other programs that load
(grouped by labeled tabs) for easy viewing.

It also provides the ability to selectively allows you to stop
(use with care) any program that you don't want to load.
You can undo any changes you have made.

Note: To get additional details on an item in the list you can't
readily identify you may need to highlight the item (right click) and use
the 'Search Online' option to get the details,
especially useful for the more obscure items in the list.

JS
http://www.pagestart.com