XP Media Center problems

[sax4Jesus]

I am running XP Media Center. Upon booting the computer up, it seems to be loading a tremendous amount of programs or something and when I turn the computer off, it goes through a lot of windows saying that it's closing programs and I can END NOW to go ahead and close it. It's making the computer run really slow. I've gone into the startup files and deleted most everything but it still seems to be loading a tremendous amount of things running in the background and I don't know how to check. I did just install a new HP printer. I'm thinking maybe it loaded a bunch of stuff and has it running in the background?

Also, I don't know how to set the computer to the right settings to make videos and streaming video play right. When I download a news clip or something from YouTube, etc., it will play a few seconds, stop, load, play a few more seconds and that cycle continues until it takes forever to view a video.

Your help would be VERY much appreciated!

Thanks in advance,
Cary

 

[CrossCech]

Try Start>>Run>>Type msconfig (enter)>>Select Startup tab>>Disable all>>Apply>>Okay>>Restart
Don't worry about disabling all that is listed. Your OS will still boot, you'll just have to manually turn things on that you want running. In that startup tab, you should see a list of things that are turned on during startup and running in the background. You could go through that list and uncheck the items you dont want running when you start up and leave the others. However, I'd just disable them all to see if it clears up the boot up and shutdown issues. Then go back and put checkmarks back into things you want in startup one at a time.

You may get a warning after reboot that says that you reconfigured something in startup. Just click the checkbox and it wont bother you anymore.

Another place to check is in processes & applications in Task Manager to see if things are hogging CPU usage or apps are running that you dont know about.

 

[sax4Jesus]

Thanks for the info! I'll give it a try.