Mark Sim-Smith
December 11th 03, 10:21 PM
I have just purchased a new machine - it's a P4 2.8GHz, 1GB RAM. I'm
running Windows XP Professional with all patches downloaded from
windows update. I have experienced extremely slow startup and
shutdown. When starting up, I get to the login page fast (say 10
secs), then after entering password and clicking "go" it takes about
15 minutes to reach the desktop. Everything then behaves normally
until shutdown, where it takes a further 15 or so minutes to "save
settings".
Originally, with a clean install it was very fast to startup and
shutdown. I have loaded numerous bits of software and patches, and
after much frustration I have isolated the problem to the size of my
My Documents folder. It has about 2.25GB of data in it across 52000
files. If I move this data to a different location startup and
shutdown occurs very quickly.
Interestingly, for the 15 minutes when the machine is waiting to
login/shutdown the hard disk does nothing.
What could be causing this delay? I am on a network with an NT4
domain, but my machine is not part of the domain, it is part of a
workgroup with one other machine (a W2K) in it. It could be
attempting to synchronize my profile, but with what? The same delay
occurs whether or not it is connected to my network (if I pull the
network cable out I still experience the delay).
Has anybody experienced this before or can they offer suggestions on
how to fix? I can live with the documentation not being in my My
Documents folder, but I don't believe I should have to live with this,
and it is more convenient for me to access it there.
Regards,
Mark
running Windows XP Professional with all patches downloaded from
windows update. I have experienced extremely slow startup and
shutdown. When starting up, I get to the login page fast (say 10
secs), then after entering password and clicking "go" it takes about
15 minutes to reach the desktop. Everything then behaves normally
until shutdown, where it takes a further 15 or so minutes to "save
settings".
Originally, with a clean install it was very fast to startup and
shutdown. I have loaded numerous bits of software and patches, and
after much frustration I have isolated the problem to the size of my
My Documents folder. It has about 2.25GB of data in it across 52000
files. If I move this data to a different location startup and
shutdown occurs very quickly.
Interestingly, for the 15 minutes when the machine is waiting to
login/shutdown the hard disk does nothing.
What could be causing this delay? I am on a network with an NT4
domain, but my machine is not part of the domain, it is part of a
workgroup with one other machine (a W2K) in it. It could be
attempting to synchronize my profile, but with what? The same delay
occurs whether or not it is connected to my network (if I pull the
network cable out I still experience the delay).
Has anybody experienced this before or can they offer suggestions on
how to fix? I can live with the documentation not being in my My
Documents folder, but I don't believe I should have to live with this,
and it is more convenient for me to access it there.
Regards,
Mark