[AnandM]

I have a Lenovo Thinkpad with Windows XP Professional with SP2. Startup is taking very long now.

I recently cleaned my system from malware that was cleaned with help from the following thread
http://www.geekstogo...rk-t199415.html

Even when the system was affected and I restarted many times, start up was quick. But after it was cleaned, I altered some StartUp Items, not sure if I accidently deleted something that should be there (I may have denied some registry changes with TeaTimer). But after I did this, it takes really long to boot.

I disabled many start up items but still it takes the same time to boot. Please help me.

Some start up items that I have are:- Symantec Antivirus, Client Firewall, TeaTimer, some Lenovo utilities.

Thanks Much.

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Disconnect from the internet and try to uncheck Symantec Antivirus, Client Firewall, TeaTimer. See how the computer reacts now. If it boots as it should, recheck one item at a time and see which is the one that slows boot.

[The Skeptic]

Disconnect from the internet and try to uncheck Symantec Antivirus, Client Firewall, TeaTimer. See how the computer reacts now. If it boots as it should, recheck one item at a time and see which is the one that slows boot.

[AnandM]

I tried..but no improvements. Still remains the same.

[The Skeptic]

I am not sure I understand. Could you explain exactly how you deleted items from startup menu? What I meant was to click Start > Run. Type msconfig and press enter. Choose selective mode and then startup. You can check or uncheck items but you cannot delete them. What I wanted to do is uncheck the mentioned programs. close and reboot the computer.

[AnandM]

Sorry about that. When I mean I deleted the start up items by mistake is:- I turned off everything on my startup (using msconfig). I installed some malware protectors. I turned the start up items back on going to normal Start Up mode from Selective startup in msconfig. At this point, I was prompted for registry changes. I by mistake may have denied registry changes for some important ones (which I suspect is causing this problem now).

After your suggestion, I unchecked items you had suggested, but that still does not improve my boot-up time.

[AnandM]

I think I may have figured out part of the problem. I installed a IBM Thinkpad Powermanagement driver, this really slowed down things. I have now uninstalled the driver and boot time has improved significantly.

However going back to the registry entries I denied, here is the log I retrived from TeaTimer. Can you please tell advice me if there is anything important that I should have from the list below and if so how to put them back.

5/27/2008 6:16:59 AM Denied (based on user decision) value "TPKMAPHELPER" (new data: "C:\Program Files\ThinkPad\Utilities\TpKmapAp.exe -helper") added in System Startup global entry!
5/27/2008 6:17:03 AM Denied (based on user decision) value "TPHOTKEY" (new data: "C:\Program Files\Lenovo\HOTKEY\TPOSDSVC.exe") added in System Startup global entry!
5/27/2008 6:17:04 AM Denied (based on user decision) value "TkBellExe" (new data: ""C:\Program Files\Common Files\Real\Update_OB\realsched.exe" -osboot") added in System Startup global entry!
5/27/2008 6:17:06 AM Denied (based on user decision) value "SynTPLpr" (new data: "C:\Program Files\Synaptics\SynTP\SynTPLpr.exe") added in System Startup global entry!
5/27/2008 6:17:08 AM Denied (based on user decision) value "SynTPEnh" (new data: "C:\Program Files\Synaptics\SynTP\SynTPEnh.exe") added in System Startup global entry!
5/27/2008 6:17:09 AM Denied (based on user decision) value "SunJavaUpdateSched" (new data: "C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.5.0\bin\jusched.exe") added in System Startup global entry!
5/27/2008 6:17:10 AM Denied (based on user decision) value "SoundMAXPnP" (new data: "C:\Program Files\Analog Devices\Core\smax4pnp.exe") added in System Startup global entry!
5/27/2008 6:17:11 AM Denied (based on user decision) value "SoundMAX" (new data: "C:\Program Files\Analog Devices\SoundMAX\Smax4.exe /tray") added in System Startup global entry!
5/27/2008 6:17:11 AM Denied (based on user decision) value "RemoteControl" (new data: ""C:\Program Files\CyberLink\PowerDVD\PDVDServ.exe"") added in System Startup global entry!
5/27/2008 6:17:12 AM Denied (based on user decision) value "QuickTime Task" (new data: ""C:\Program Files\QuickTime\qttask.exe" -atboottime") added in System Startup global entry!
5/27/2008 6:17:13 AM Denied (based on user decision) value "PWRMGRTR" (new data: "rundll32 C:\PROGRA~1\ThinkPad\UTILIT~1\PWRMGRTR.DLL,PwrMgrBkGndMonitor") added in System Startup global entry!
5/27/2008 6:17:14 AM Denied (based on user decision) value "Persistence" (new data: "C:\WINDOWS\system32\igfxpers.exe") added in System Startup global entry!
5/27/2008 6:17:15 AM Denied (based on user decision) value "NeroFilterCheck" (new data: "C:\WINDOWS\system32\NeroCheck.exe") added in System Startup global entry!
5/27/2008 6:17:17 AM Denied (based on user decision) value "LanguageShortcut" (new data: ""C:\Program Files\CyberLink\PowerDVD\Language\Language.exe"") added in System Startup global entry!
5/27/2008 6:17:18 AM Denied (based on user decision) value "IgfxTray" (new data: "C:\WINDOWS\system32\igfxtray.exe") added in System Startup global entry!
5/27/2008 6:17:19 AM Denied (based on user decision) value "HotKeysCmds" (new data: "C:\WINDOWS\system32\hkcmd.exe") added in System Startup global entry!
5/27/2008 6:17:21 AM Denied (based on user decision) value "googletalk" (new data: "C:\Program Files\Google\Google Talk\googletalk.exe /autostart") added in System Startup global entry!
5/27/2008 6:17:22 AM Denied (based on user decision) value "EZEJMNAP" (new data: "C:\PROGRA~1\ThinkPad\UTILIT~1\EzEjMnAp.Exe") added in System Startup global entry!
5/27/2008 6:17:23 AM Denied (based on user decision) value "BLOG" (new data: "rundll32 C:\PROGRA~1\ThinkPad\UTILIT~1\BatLogEx.DLL,StartBattLog") added in System Startup global entry!

Thanks Much.

[The Skeptic]

Uninstall all the programs in which you denied access with Tea Timer. Disable Tea Timer and reinstall the programs. This will ensure complete installation and will avoid the slow down (I hope).

Tea Timer and similar tools can be very confusing. Very often you don't know whether to allow or block a registry change. As a rule of thumb I allow everything which is clearly related to an action taken by myself. For example, when I install a program and get Tea Timer, or Spyware Terminator or Spyware Guard messages, I allow them. If a message shows up spontaniously, I try to find out what it (Google) or block it right away.

[AnandM]

Okay let me try this out.

BTW, since I know which registry changes I denied (Data/value) and I see there is an option in TeaTimer->tools->StartUp to manually add the values back, Can I take this route since I just denied registry changes and never did anything with the installation of these as such. Is this safe or can it lead to more problems?

[The Skeptic]

I don't see any harm in restoring the blocked entries from Spybot. Just make sure that you don't unblock entries that were stored there before.