Slow XP startup

[RandomBuckeye]

For some reason about a week ago my computer crashed and is now very very slow to boot up. It gets hung up at the boot screen with the blue progress bar for a long time then takes a long time to boot up from the desktop. I have removed all unnecessary startup files, defragged and virus scanned and spyware scanned. Also once the computer does get booted it is very sluggish. It's a brand new powerful dell laptop running XP media center.

what can i do. I'd like to restore to factory settings but it didn't come with a boot disk or anything.

 

[iambrutus]

if you call dell they can and will send you the CD's. they will probably try to make you pay for them, but just insist that when you got them in the box they were scratched, or something and you wont have to pay

 

[BrutusMaximus]

Yet another reason why I hate brand-name machines. Even if they didnt send you the disks though, you can still do a restore, because they usually just create a seperate partition on the drive, and put all the backup crap on there. It is different for each company though, so I'd say you probably want to call and ask how to do it.

 

[kenlin]

try deleting all of the files in C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch and look for new and/or unnecessary icons in your system tray. try to disable anything unneeded.