so why does my laptop take 20 minutes to boot up?

I'm going for the reason being virus/s

Thanks for those suggestions. I'll work through them all and post back results.

and as for "upgrading" to windows 7... I have it on me new Acer Aspire netbook and its just as carpy as XP. In fact, more programs are "not responding" on this thing which is brand new, than I ever had on XP. In fact, some programs won't run on it at all. You have to have Windows 7 ultimate for XP programs to work.

C

Generally can't beat good old XP for all round compatibility unless ur playing Battlefields 3 which doesn't run on XP.
I'd check the msconfig in search and see whats running on startup. Stop things like adobe, itunes, Qtask etc. If you open stuff that needs it, then it'll auto start them up. here's mine, very little on start up!

[flymo]

some very interesting suggestions on here I have to say. Forget about the 8GB ram and forget about upgrading OSs and all that crap and concentrate on troubleshooting whats actually wrong. 4GB ram is plenty to boot a machine running XP in a sensible amount of time, the fact that an additional 4GB wont be getting used is irrelevant to the problem.

If you need any help I would be happy to take a look remotely.

can anyone tell me how to get to start/run on windows 7?? its not where it should be

[flymo]

Originally Posted by tom-k6

can anyone tell me how to get to start/run on windows 7?? its not where it should be

works differently in W7. Click the start button (Windows logo thing) and just start typing the name of the app in the search bar, or alternatively type a file path in there and run it

It's cos you're in Canada and they use 110v

[flymo]

Originally Posted by Ed

It's cos you're in Canada and they use 110v

, just found myself humming the startup jingle thing in slow motion "bom bom bom bommmmmmm!"

Originally Posted by Stuuk1

8 Gig of RAM and takes that long?! Haha!

Mate, seriously, upgrade to Windows 7 and you will never look back.

Windows 7 is awesome.

I won't even repeat what the other's have said with regards to the 32bit RAM limit...

I've seen this before, it's most likely

• a virus has infected explorer.exe (which is the program which your start menu, my computer etc runs off)
• you have a nasty start up process (follow other's info to reduce your start up programs)
• you have a corrupt user profile.

Does it happen in safe mode? If it does not, this will help to diagnose it.

If it does, then it's virus infection or some corruption somewhere along the line. Best of wiping it and re-installing windows.





I really would recommend getting Windows 7, if you can see new versions of programs that will work on it. The only stuff which doesn't anymore is either VERY old or specialist. If you get one of the 64 bit editions (no reason not to anymore) then you'll get to unlock all the performance that your computer is limited to right now.

I think your bad experiences are just from a badly set up install. Manufacturers get paid to shove so much crap on them, the first thing I do when a family member gets a computer is reformat it and let it really start from fresh, Windows is awesome when it's set up right in the first place.

Does your antivirus start with an "N" and sound like Orton?