Windows XP welcome screen suddenly taking forever

Hey, ive just recently noticed that my Windows XP (SP2) 'Welcome' screen is taking forever- it stays up for over a minute, where it used to be seconds. does anyone know what could be causing this, or how to fix it?

 

have you changed any settings - bios or windows?

or have you installed any new software or drivers?

do you have any software that automatically updates - ie windows update or antivirus?

 

For all users?
In Safe Mode?
Any errors in Event Viewer?

 

Well i only have my user on this computer, so that one is a moot point. yes, i have the symantec auto update program for norton internet security and windows updater counts too- i havent installed any new drivers or programs in a while (since before this started) but i believe it may have something to do with using msconfig.exe to alter the programs that load at startup- i have it set to only run the services and startup deals. is this what it needs to be doing? i imagine it wont go any quicker in normal startup mode. anyways, ill consider/try out any suggestion, cuz itd be nice to get this resolved.

 

Installed any auto updates recently? After putting the latest ones on, the welcome screen takes ages to go, with the pc sat doing nothing... Its fixed itself now though, think another batch of updates sorted it....
Damn crappy windows update

 

most common reason for unusually large boot times: cluttered desktop.

a ton of shortcuts is ok, but actually saving files (especially folders full of huge rar's and mp3's) to the desktop will seriously bog windows down. the system has to take the time to scan everything on the desktop every time you boot, and if you have an extremely large file set as wallpaper, it can slow some machines down also, especially if it is way larger than your desktop resolution.

 

Are you on a network?

Press alt+tab whilst it's doing it, you might just see a dialogue that says "attempting to connect network drives" or something to that effect.

To stop it, when you map your network drives, don't tick the option to "reconnect at login".

There again, I may be way off.

 

Have you changed the password at all?

 

kickarse, nope, no password on here at all actually, so thats cleared

as for alt tabbing, ill try that, cuz i was futzing around with network stuff awhile ago, so that may do it as well

I have the latest windows update, and i only have 18 icons on my desktop, all shortcuts. im disconnecting my server drives soon, so ill see if that does it.

 

Please check the Event Viewer.

 

Ok, I believe i may have found the problem- my NIC is set up so that if it cannot find an internet connection, it auto-specifies a preset IP address. however, i rarely if ever boot with an active connection- so would the computer trying multiple times to connect cause enough of a lag to slow this down? i will find out i guess.

EDIT

not only that, but it looks like i set it up so that the auto specified addres was 198.162 so that it disabled DCHP or whatever. have also corrected to see if issue is resolved

 

problem solved- IP issues. Thanks all.