Windows XP Home very slow in Normal mode, OK in Safe w/networking

[Guest]

I'm having a problem with Windows XP Home which just started recently. We have several people sharing the same computer, so it's hard to tell if anyone loaded anything strange

After a normal bootup, it can take as long as 3 minutes to open screens like the Control Panel, My Computer, Internet Explorer etc. Using MSCONFIG and setting it to Diagnostic mode and using a normal bootup doesn't fix the problem
Using Safe Mode with Networking, all works OK.

I have run Ad-Aware, and McAfee virus scanner, but they aren't showing anything strange. I tried disabling as much as I could in the Device Manager, and then rebooting with MSCONFIG in Diagnostic mode and using a normal bootup, but still had the problem. I did the Windows XP Home 'update' --- still have the same problem

Any help would be greatly appreciated...

 

[Guest]

I am having same exact problem - Explorer, Control Panel, My documents all take minutes to open. Only affects one user account - all other user accounts work fine - at normal speeds. It is interesting that in task manager it doesn't appear that anything is happening when I try to start one of these programs. The system resources don't seem overtasked that would make the computer slow down. I hope someone has an answer or can direct me to where I can find an answer.

I would just delete this account but it is my main account and I am unsure how to transfer files, Internet Favorites, and e-mails over to another account seemlessly.

 

[Tylor]

I (finally) figured out what it was. In the
Administrative tools -- Event Viewer, I found that there
was an error showing up with DCOM timing out, and it
listed a long server name. When I clicked on the
details, and the Microsoft link, it basically said that
my system was trying to find a server (out in the
Internet somewhere) and couldn't connect. This was
causing the slowdown. Appears to be related to a virus.
It pointed to an application called "Apropos", so I
deleted everything to do with it, and also went through
the registry (using Regedit), and deleted any reference
to it.

Hope this helps you too...