Slow start-up
 

i have a new laptop and for some reason it sometimes takes a good 5-7 minutes to go from my putting in my user name and password to me being able to finally start a damn program. sometimes it's instant, but every few startups it just sits there after i put in my username and password, doing nothing. the activity light doesn't blink, the little hourglass isn't around or anything. it just sits there. and then all of a sudden, 5-7 minutes later, the computer "wakes up" and loads windows as if nothing was wrong.

it's very frustrating for a new computer to take that long to start up, even if it is only once out of a number of start ups. does anyone have this problem or know how to fix it?

My wifes new laptop had similar issues. It was loaded with piles of crap from the manufacturer, and most of that was in the startup menu. Seems a common issue with OEM vista versions, Go into the startup menu (under remove programs in vista) and disable all the crap from startup you dont use daily.

If possible, try reloading the laptop with Windows only. A fresh start would greatly benefit it if it were bought from some place like Best Buy or similar. If you have to use restore cd's or something like that, they will come with all of the crap that is on it now.

If its a Dell, they actually give you a Windows CD to reload from and then a drivers cd for all of the hardware.

use autoruns by sysinternals to view everything that is loading

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sys.../Autoruns.mspx

disable some of the junk and reboot, if you are unsure, use the system restore points so you can hop back just in case.