[wsrehab]

Both my wife and I run Windows XP on our Toshiba Laptops. Our laptops have been getting very slow on startup. It is to the point that we turn on our laptops and go do something else for about 5 minutes. When we come back we can actually do something on the computer. It just hangs if you try to do anything within the 5 minute time after hitting the on button. I'm sure it's all the crap running in the background. I have Scotty the Watchdog supposedly blocking startup programs, but when I go to that program I'm not certain what should be running. Any help would be appreciated.

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Post laptops info: processor speed, amount of RAM, hard drive size/free space, to start with.

[Broni]

Post laptops info: processor speed, amount of RAM, hard drive size/free space, to start with.

[1101doc]

There are many factors that influence boot time, but you've got your eye on the main thing: background processes. I've made a (rather extensive) post on Vox that addresses this issue, including a good list of places to check out processes: http://doc1101.vox.com/ The "links" on the page are not live. Copy and paste the URLs to your browser address bar to view the referenced pages.

I have also noticed that may folks set their anti-virus and anti-spyware programs to automatically update once a day. If the time scheduled has passed, they will update immediately at start- "Oops! I'm late! better do it right away!" This at a time when your needed auto-start programs all all starting anyway- processor logjam! This is one of the reasons that I do the updates manually once a day.

[wsrehab]

I tried what 1101doc suggested and it is a bit faster but still quite sluggish. I have a Toshiba Tecra laptop with An Intel Pentium M processor at 1.73 GHz 794 MHz, 504 MB ram. Hard Drive is 52.9GB with 6.04GB free. I am running WinPatrol and have run through the startup processes and they all seem to be either necessary or not recommended that I disable them. I have also set my virus software (AVG) to run at a time other than at startup. Thanks!

[Broni]

Hard Drive is 52.9GB with 6.04GB free

The above is one of your problems. Windows needs at least 15% of a free space to run correctly (8 GB in your case). You need to move some stuff out of your HD. The more, the better.
Another 512MB of RAM will help too.