VERY slow login on windows xp home

[lhamil64]

We have a Dell Desktop and it is a few years old. For some reason when we click a name on the welcome screen, it shows the desktop background for like 15 minutes (haven't timed it). Ctrl+Alt+Del doesn't do anything nor does the start key do anything. We think its because of a slow bootup process, but we're not sure which one in msconfig. Please help.

 

[dude_se]

start by unticking all the useless crap you dont need. like quicktime player and stuff, and go from there

 

[Juice1]

Since it is a few years old, it should be pretty slow anyway. Probably time for a good reformat + some upgrading.

 

[lhamil64]

Well its not really slow, it has 512 mb of ram that came with it. We are somewhat thinking of a reformat, but that would mean buying new XP disks (unless we wanted to use that "I formatted my pc and need a new key" excuse lol)

 

[cavemangrinder]

You should clean out the registry. Maybe that will fix your problem. Or you can "Set it and forget it", and just reformat it.

 

[blackjack]

Dude_se was right when he said uncheck all the unnecessary things in startup, only run your bare minimum on boot like AV/FIREWALL, turn off automatic updates as well and do them manually if you don't mind do it, give your computer a disk clean up/defrag as well to remove all those temporary INTERNET files and cookies that clutter up your system.