Windows XP Boot Process Question

I have a 450 Mhz Pentium III machine, with 128 Mb memory and a 12 Gb hard
drive. I am running Windows XP Home Edition SP1 with all the latest
updates. I also run Norton AntiVirus, also with all the latest updates.

It takes 2 minutes to bring up the desk-top. I know I am on the lower
margin of resources for XP, so I am not concerned with this 2 minutes. What
has me puzzled is that after the desktop comes up, the machine spends about
3 more minutes ripping through my hard drive doing something and chewing up
about 90% of the resources. My hard drive is rather noisy, so this activity
is quite audible.

I would rather avoid trying to tune the system by the blind trial and error
method. I have already turned off the WindowsXP pre-fetch feature, but that
made no detectable difference. I have also disabled all of the processes
whose functions I have been able to identify (and recognize that I don't
need at startup).

Can anyone suggest what the system thinks it is doing for these 3 extra
minutes? Or where I can look to find out what it thinks it is doing? Or
can anyone recommend a tool that would let me figure out what is going on
here?

Well, in the first place, 'turning off the WindowsXP pre-fetch feature'
makes your computer slower, not faster.

Secondly, who knows what processes you have disabled 'whose functions I have
been able to identify and recognize that I don't need' and whether that is
part of your problem.

Expect that your computer will run slowly with the hardware that you have.
Prolonged hard drive activity could be one or more of several things,
including: excessive paging due to your minimal memory and available disk
space, Windows' own internal housekeeping (one of XP's principal benefits)
and spyware.

Instead of fooling around with things you don't really understand, you
should upgrade your hardware. There's a point at which it becomes more cost
effective to just buy a new computer, but for now you should consider
increasing your RAM to 512MB and getting a much larger hard disk.

Rocky

"Stuart Burns" wrote in message
.. .
I have a 450 Mhz Pentium III machine, with 128 Mb memory and a 12 Gb hard
drive. I am running Windows XP Home Edition SP1 with all the latest
updates. I also run Norton AntiVirus, also with all the latest updates.

It takes 2 minutes to bring up the desk-top. I know I am on the lower
margin of resources for XP, so I am not concerned with this 2 minutes.
What
has me puzzled is that after the desktop comes up, the machine spends
about
3 more minutes ripping through my hard drive doing something and chewing
up
about 90% of the resources. My hard drive is rather noisy, so this
activity
is quite audible.

I would rather avoid trying to tune the system by the blind trial and
error
method. I have already turned off the WindowsXP pre-fetch feature, but
that
made no detectable difference. I have also disabled all of the processes
whose functions I have been able to identify (and recognize that I don't
need at startup).

Can anyone suggest what the system thinks it is doing for these 3 extra
minutes? Or where I can look to find out what it thinks it is doing? Or
can anyone recommend a tool that would let me figure out what is going on
here?