I don't think you have a problem per-se, it seems to me as tho' it's a windows xp thang.....

XP on stand-by/shutdown writes all the system/program/user settings etc to a 'journal' file, this enables it to restart with everything running as it should the next time the puter is booted up.

 I've known XP machines take as long as half an hour to complete this 'journalling', a bit of a bind at first but once XP gets it's head around how the user usually uses the system what programs/utilities etc are installed and how they are configured to run, this journalling time gets shorter and shorter. In your case you've done an update that has changed a lot of the settings already stored in XP's journal so it has to start over and compile a new one.

PATIENCE is the buzzword with any XP setup when new,or after updating installing anything new on the system, interrupting the journal can lead to system wide corruption of files and data and more often than not you will be greeted with the standard "Windows did not shut down properly...." screen when this gets too serious for XP to handle so let it 'do it's thing'...it'll repay your patience with faster and faster start ups if you do

Thanks Bluetracker for the info...makes sense.  I've also been told to use hibernate instead of standby...so that has been working a little better. Just one little question..I've had to use the reset a lot recently to shut it down, will that harm my laptop over time?