Are your virus definitions up to date and have you scanned your drive for viruses?

Have you checked for malware and spyware? run (free) Spybot and Adaware; for details on these and download links

http://www.cjwd.demon.co.uk/compsafetyonline.html

If your PC is clean after running those, you could try to identify whether it is a program that loads on startup is causing the problem.

Click start, run, type msconfig , click OK. This will launch msconfig. In the startup tab are all the things that load at start up. You can uncheck them one at a time, restart, see if the startup is improved. If not, recheck the box for that item, uncheck the next one., etc.

There may be several things loading on startup that you don't need. To see what the items are and whether you need them, look in

http://www.sysinfo.org/startuplist.php

type the name of the item in the search box, or scroll through the pages.

Message Edited by JRosenfeld on 01-13-2004 12:49 AM

I did the msconfig thing, and the problem items weren't in the startup tab, but in the services tab. Specifically, the three check boxes were:

• Remote Access Auto Connection Manager
• Remote Access Connection Manager
• Remote Desktop Help Session Manager

Still, your suggestion was the one that helped (and the only one I got), so thank you very much! I think I'm down to only four annoying problems with my laptop now!

Glad you solved your problem. FYI good sites for services info are

http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

and

http://www.theeldergeek.com/services_guide.htm