Hey guys
need some help here.
I have 2 issues:

1 - 70% of the time xp loads ok. but the other 30% it takes several minutes - and i do mean several minutes. It seems that XP loads but after getting to the welcome screen and choosing an user account- it says loading personal settings and it hangs there for ever.
what can I do to see what personal setting is loading that it takes for ever?

2- after personal settings have been loaded- desktop has loaded and everything else seems to be ok- If I click on a program it takes minutes to open it. sometimes I can open the task manager and see where the CPU usage is going and 99% is idle. It's acting as if she's "thinking" about something but I'm not sure what it is. Is there a way to see what is loading or what is going on during this time? I downloaded Process Explorer from MS but I'm not sure if I'm reading it properly.

Any help or ideas are appreciated

jr_dude

Is this a new problem?

Do you run AV scans?

Also might want to run Spybot and AdAware as seen in this thread:

http://www.techhelpforum.com/showthread.php?t=3702

Yes I do. I run Spybot and AdAware often. I have Trend Mico PcCillin as AV- at one point I thought that was cause of the probem so I removed it but the problems (both loading and starting programs) kept occuring. Also I have to add that after the desktop is loaded I can open folders and "navigate" any disk/folder. But programs do not open.