Hi, I'm running Windows XP SP2 with 2GB of RAM and P4 3.4 ghz CPU. Lately I've noticed Windows is taking forever to launch programs. Ill double click on a program and it takes between 30-60 seconds to start. I've already defragged my harddrive and checked for spyware, adware, and rootkits. Any suggestions on what could be causing this?

Have a look in Task Manager & see what is gobbling up your CPU cycles. Using the Windows Task Manager (XP) http://www.worldstart.com/tips/tips... Matching Processes to Programs http://www.worldstart.com/tips/tips... Determining What Services are Running http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/ser... You might not know it, but the Windows Task Manager is a very familiar tool. Each time you press the common Ctrl - Alt - Delete command, you call up the Windows Task Manager. It displays information about programs and processes running on your computer. It also shows you data on CPU and memory usage and user information. To open the Windows Task Manager, right-click on an empty part of the task bar and select Task Manager, or you can press Ctrl - Alt - Delete. Under the Applications tab, you'll see all the programs that are currently running on your computer. If a program has stopped responding, you can end the program by selecting it and hitting the End Task button. Under the Users tab, you can see who is connected to your computer and send them a message.

Johnw may be exactly right! Check what's running in the background during start-up. Go to Start / Run / msconfig / and click the "startup" tab to see what's being loaded everytime you start Windows. Un-check the ones you don't need (be sure to research first that it's not a necessary program), then reboot. Even with 2gb RAM on a P4 3.4ghz system, if there's TONS of programs starting up and running in the background, your RAM resources get gobbled up mighty quickly and slows everything down to a snail's pace. ~ Sarah C. ~~~~~~~ eMachines H2602 1.9ghz Athlon XP 2600+ 80gb HDD Primary 40gb HDD Secondary Windows XP Pro w/ SP2 512mb DDR PC2700

I already have optimized my computer by removing unnecessary services and programs from startup. My problem is when I first open a program (even hours after Windows has started) it will take a long time to load. However, if I close the program and reopen it up it opens up normally. I checked the task manager and my anti-virus (Kaspersky AVP 6.0) and it had about 20% cpu usage at program startup, but even when I disabled it, I still had the same problem. I think the problem may be with the program loader, or some corrupted system file, since this just started happening out of the blue and I haven't installed anything recently. Another thing is I've also started getting a few BSODs and one of them was about illegal access of paged memory or something like that (my page file is about 1 gig) Anyways, if anyone has any ideas, I'd appreciate it.

You appear to have two events happening; slow pgm execution etc., and the arrival of bsod... BSOD... can be due to less than purrfekt RAM; one or more stick may be going down... BSOD can also be due a drive starting develop problems (dodgy/failing segments); and this may corrupt an OS system file or three...; or you may have plain/simple corrupt/damaged system files which can also produce bsod symptoms. Add the bsod events to your slow to load/run pgms etc.. and I'm inclined to RAM initially. That pgms. start OK when you try again may point RAM as I surmise that what happens is that slightly different segment of a give RAM stick may go into use, or a second attempt to use that area succeeds and and thus the pgm loads etc. OK, or on the second go it's not using that damaged/faulty area? I'd be inclinded to test out each stick (if more than one installed. Reduce to a min of 128Meg and see how it goes. Likewise a RAM/Mem test util "may" indicate if somethings amiss with RAM. Which having said... I've not been much impressed with RAM utils; they seem to take forever to check RAM fully (naturally it will take a while...), may not truly represent what's amiss (as compared to running an app/util etc.). Overall I've tended to favour test by substitution... A full hard-disk scandisk/checkdisk routine might be useful too to see if dodgy segments are starting appear. Perhaps start with the scandisk routine; then onto RAM - as the former is easily achieved, the latter takes "a little time..."? Bit geek-speak as it were... but it's the best way I can think of to explain what may be happening...

You may be able to get more info from the Event viewer. HOW TO: View and Manage Event Logs in Event Viewer in Windows XP http://support.microsoft.com/defaul... You may get more info from minidumps. Make sure it is Enabled. Control Panel --> System --> Advanced --> Startup and Recovery --> Settings ---> Write debugging information --> Complete memory dump. On XP and 2003 systems, mini dumps are located at %SystemRoot%\Minidump, or c:\Windows\Minidump; kernel and full dumps are located at %SystemRoot%\MEMORY.DMP or c:\Windows\MEMORY.DMP. How to solve Windows system crashes in minutes http://www.networkworld.com/news/20... http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devto... http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showth... If you want to stop a blue screen auto reboot so you can read the error message from the screen: Go to Start -> Control Panel -> System Go to Advanced Under the Startup and Recovery section, click Settings... Under System Failure, un-check "Automatically restart"

I encountered virtually the identical problem. After much frustration it dawned on me that the prefetch might be the cause. Delete everything in your c:\windows\PreFetch directory and reboot your computer twice. Everything seems MUCH better now. Some recommend doing this once a month, this is the first time I've done it in two years. I'd say do this at least once a year or so.