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XP boot-up problem

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johnk:
My main PC (Windows XP SP2) behaves itself very well -- apart from when it boots up.

The desktop appears as normal.  However, for about 10 - 15 minutes after booting up, there are a lot of things the system won't do. Essentially, system files seem to be locked down.  The easiest thing is to give examples:

I cannot install programs (that write to the registry), or indeed edit the registry at all. I cannot use IE, or any program that uses the IE system files, but I can use Firefox. I can't access system management utilities (e.g. if I access Start Menu ->Settings->Network Connections, the menu will freeze on the screen until the system "unlocks").

So generally speaking after booting up I just leave the computer for a quarter of an hour or so. I know when it's ready to use, as my mail checker program bursts into life and all the shortcuts on the desktop "blink".

Obviously I've run plenty of virus/spyware checks. The Event Viewer doesn't seem to offer any obvious clues.

The only other odd system behaviour (not sure if it's a clue) is that, when copying/moving files, the system uses huge amounts of CPU activity, much more than other computers I use. In particular, when receiving files from other machines on my network, the system slows down badly and hits 100pc CPU activity, which is odd.  But this happens all the time, so I doubt it is related to my boot up problem.

To be honest I've been putting up with the boot-up glitch for many months because, apart form this, my system is amazingly stable.  I can (and do) leave the system running for days without any problem.  If I need to reboot, I just leave the computer and have a cup of coffee. So it's really not that big an issue. I'd just like to solve it....any ideas?

cranioscopical:
Plenty of free drive space?

mouser:
it almost sounds as if you have a virus scanner doing a full system scan at bootup.
or else some other thing like a disk defrag at every bootup.

if you bring up the task manager (ctrl+alt+del) and sort by cpu usage at boot up, do you see a culprit program using a lot of cpu for those first 10 minutes?

there are also tools for analyzing startup times but it doesn't really sound like that is your problem to me.

johnk:
cranioscopical/mouser,

Thanks for the (amazingly quick) responses.  Yes, I have plenty of free drive space. I have monitored activity during and after startup. There's certainly no AV scan at boot-up - I switched that off.

CPU activity is very low during the 10 or 15 minutes when the system is not functioning properly. And I certainly can't find any mystery process in the Task Manager. It's as if there's a little script somewhere that's saying "after boot-up, wait 15 minutes before allowing access to system files"...

Rhutobello:
Sorry to say....but my PC here on work do the exactly same thing.

It might be that you have a problem with your hard disk. I had on mine, I took full scan and repair...it takes around 8-10 hours...can be longer if you have lots of info on it....if you will try it...do it at night.

It found a lot of dmg sectors, I took new install and it worked fine in the start.
Now after a couple of month, each start lock the pc for a long time, but when it again accept action, I can run several programs at once.

BTW do you use McAfee suite? I do, and I know this update itself at startup and it seems to prevent other thing from running...but I am not sure....I am only sure of my bad sectors on the HD.....and yes..I shall replace it..I live on backup for now :)

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