I was installing SP2 about a week ago and a few days after upgrade my system frequently stalls (hangs up) during a very slow start-up. This happens mostly when system loads desktop and tray items (programs). The only way I can get system running in moment is to switch it off by force and reboot with last working configuration of Windows. But during next normal reboot problem comes back. I already tried roling back processor driver (which was suggested as possible solution), was removing SP2, which made situation worse (as some other programs start playing up). In the moment I am trying to re-install SP2 again, but I am not sure that it will solve start-up problems. Any suggestions? Other programs I am running are Office 2000 Prof, IE6, Norton AV 2003, have a hardware firewall (modem/router), intrusion prevention, but run lots of background software (e.g. weather station, world watch, RSS client, etc). regards Pete

If you have trouble with sp2 after installing boot to the safe mode and go to the boot.ini file in C: drive, Open properties and uncheck the read only box. Then open the file with notepad. Look for /noexecute=optin. Change it to /noexecute=AlwaysOff. This has worked for me as drwtsn.exe file has stopped the loading at the desktop

ok first of all boot in safe mode then defrag the hard drive all of em then go to command prompt start>>>run>>>cmd at the c:\ type chkdsk /r then hit y and reboot in safe mode again thes will do a compeat test of your disk once tht is done defrag again then get rid of all your start up sevices which are not ecencial for running windows the only things that should realy be in teh system tray are your antivirus and firewall and maby msn and safly rmove harwair then go to www.blackviper.com on another pc if possible adn go to the winows xp sp1/2 services and end all of the oen syou dont need i recomend turning off help and support error reporting service auto updtes theams (will make it look like win 2K) fast user swiching(will use 2k log on method) andy any others which are not essental and all programs that start up diable them all all of them apart form firewall you dont need to run antivirus all the time jsut make sure you run it evey few days then defrag again and it sould bood up much faster

EDIT also run chkdsk /r for all your drives and whenever i say defrag that is for all drives

MS lists several pages of programs that are affected by SP2 and may no longer run properly after SP2 is installed. I recommend uninstalling all of your programs that load during startup, then add them back one at a time. SP2 may have changed some security settings on files needed by those programs, etc. The list contains MS Office products, anti-virus software, and a whole slew of other vendors' software. Good Luck