Sunshinysmile not smiling---startup takes forever, computer hiccups constantly...

[Sunshinysmile]

Hello IANAG folks and TYVM,

My labtop takes over 6 minutes to complete startup, it gets hung on something constantly...worse over the last week, my outlook won't open sometimes if my live365 radio is on. I think it may be my Paltalk software. But I uninstalled, and nothing changed. And I think there are too many programs starting up at startup. I have done pretty much all you asked me to do, except the AVG would not run in Safe Mode. It kept shutting the computer down. My scans are attached. I wanted to include my startup info scan, but it was 194.5 KBs...too big to attach.

Thanks so much...and God bless you and yours on this Memorial Day. Hug a vet!

[jholland1964]

Hi Sunshinysmile,
Your Kaspersky log is clean and I really don't see any malware in your HJT log, what I do see, however, is exactly what you mentioned, an extraordinary number of programs running at Start Up and therefore running all the time in the background, and many of them are not required or are listed as "users choice" meaning also that they are not required for the running of the computer. I have gone through all of them and these are the ones deemed not necessary to run the computer;
A HUGE number of these are Acer programs which, it seems to me are not required and are supposed to make the running of the computer easy but I think they may be the root of the problem....6 of them are connected to the Acer Launch tool utility on laptops. These include the following;
LaunchAp>>>for programmable keys
PowerKey>>>PowerKey utility for Acer TravelMate notebook PCs. Allows the user to quickly switch between different power schemes by pressing Fn F3
LManager>>>on Acer laptops it allows users to configure shortcut keys and to set the operating state of the WLAN module and the (optional) Bluetooth radio
CtrlVol>>>Acer's on screen volume control using the Fn key
LMgrOSD>>>OSD (on-screen-display) utility. Gives you control to customize the monitor to your liking...from sound, brightness, contrast, horizontal and vertical positions, phase, pixel clock, color and language
Wbutton>>>Related to the Wacom Penabled driver on Acer Tablet PCs. Appears to do nothing

Here are some other Acer programs which are also users choice;
eRecoveryService>>>Part of Acer's eRecovery Management program. This program allows you to create and restore backups of your computer. It also enables you to restore your computer back to the factory default installation. Considered user's choice
ADMTray.exe>>> Acer Inc. Destop tray

Now here are the others also deemed not necessary for the smooth running of the computer and can be run manually when needed;

SunJavaUpdateSched>>>Checks with Sun's Java updates site to see if newer Java versions are available. Visit http://java.sun.com or just run the Java Plug-In Control Panel. Can easily be run manually
ControlCenter2.0>>>Brother scanner 'Control Center' application; can be started manually
iTunesHelper>>>Installed with Apple's iTunes for Windows. Uses ~3-4MB of memory
QuickTime Task>>>System Tray access to Apple's "Quick Time" viewer. Not required, can be run manually
TkBellExe>>>Application Scheduler installed along with RealOne Player. Not required, can be run manually.
SSBkgdUpdate>>>ScanSoft OmniPage auto updater. Can be disabled using the main program's options.
PaperPort PTD>>>"PaperPort" software associated with scanners
IndexSearch>>>Associated with PaperPort scanner software from ScanSoft
MSMSGS>>> Windows Messenger utility. If you don\'t use Windows Messenger, this can be annoying. Available via Start -> Programs. Go to Windows Messenger > Tools > Options > Preferences and uncheck "Run this program when Windows starts"
Radio365Agent>>>can be run manually
Yahoo! Pager>>>Yahoo! Messenger allows you to send instant messages. Available via Start -> Programs
SpybotSD TeaTimer>>>Sometimes will interfere with fixes required. Users choice.
Adobe Acrobat Speed Launcher>>>Speeds up the time it takes to load the Adobe_Reader application. Your choice, but not required for Adobe Reader to function properly
Adobe Reader Speed Launch>>>Speeds up the time it takes to load the Adobe_Reader application. Your choice, but not required for Adobe Reader to function properly
PCMService>>>A multimedia software, and program is non-essential process to the running of the system
You also have entries for PHIME2002ASync and PHIME2002A which are Part of Microsoft\'s Input Message Editor (IME) for translating Japanese/Chinese text in IE, Outlook and Word
IMJPMIG8.1>>>Part of MS Input Method Editor which is used to ease the input of Asian characters in MS Office (Chinese, Korean and this one is Japanese). These three programs are fine but are not needed to run at start up.

Now the tendency for folks wishing to disable Start Up items is to use msconfig but a better and easier way is to use
Mike Lin's StartUpControl Panel
This is a super, small, FREE program which you can download and install from the link above. Once installed it can be found in the Control Panel. You open the program and remove the checkmarks from any of those I noted above. Close the program, reboot the computer and see if the start up time is speeded up. The nice thing about this program is if you do find there is something you do wish to run at Start Up then just go back into the StartUpControl panel and put the checkmark back in to re-enable the auto start.
Try these and see how things work.

You also might want to take a look at ~TL's sticky in Operating Systems How to configure Windows Services in XP
as the link there can give you more tips for speeding up your computer.
Judy

[Sunshinysmile]

Judy!!! Thanks so much!!! Getting to it right now!

[jholland1964]

Happy to be able to offer some suggestions. Please keep us up to date on how things are running.
Judy

[Sunshinysmile]

Hi Judy...I want to make the adjustments to my XP suggested by TL, but I don't know how to access the Windows Services to change their settings. Please assist.

[jholland1964]

Go to Start, Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Double Click Services.