very slow start up

[teresa pople]

Hi there, hope you can help with this.
Ok, from yesterday, when I start up, the process goes
fine until the taskbar is being loaded then there is a
long pause with no activity for about 45 seconds until
the remainder is loaded. (It stops before the av, network
neighbourhood and printer icons show) During this pause I
can only access non internet stuff.
I had a look around and noticed that something had
changed in my "network neighbourhood" settings.
Previously the two little sreens on the taskbar had
an "X" over them, nothing was connected. Now the screens
don't have the "x" and it says there is now a Lan with a
speed of10 Mbs. (I haven't done this.) When I looked at
this it says it is now enabled and if I try to disable it
the machine either won't respond or if it evenyually
does, won't shut down properly. On start up the LAN is
once again enabled. I don't know if this is coincidence
but it's the only thing different I can see on the system.
I've had the patch in place re the Balster worm for a
couple of weeks and I've scanned for viruses - zilch!

Please can you give me one of your magic fixes !
Cheers, Teresa