f6twister

I own a HP Pavillion 515n which is running Windows XP Home with SP2 installed.

I recently purchased and installed Norton's Internet Security. Once I got everything set up, I tried to access Outlook Express. It worked fine. Later, I tried to check my email but OE would no longer open. I double checked the Norton settings and made sure that stuff could get out and that the program was allowed. Everything is set up correctly. So, I contacted the Symantec help system. This is what they told me to do:

Now, I'm certainly not a computer programmer or anything like that but even I know that you shouldn't just start disabling your startup programs one by one without even considering what you are stopping.

This is what I have in the start up section:
hpsysdrv
hkcmd
RUNDLL32
AutoStarterR
RECGUARD
nwiz
lxbbbmgr
ConMgr
hpqcmon
realsched
LiveUpdate
KBD
ALCXMNTR
ccApp
SNDMon
Weather
NCLAUNCH
TaskPanl
ELSBLaunch
Kodak Easyshare software
Kodak Software updater
PowerReg Scheduler
WKCALREM

Does anyone have an idea which of these could be causing the problem or at least, which ones it couldn't possibly be?

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kebo

It would appear that at least some of the stuff can be turned off, but msconfig is not the best place to do it. The best place to disable services is from Services.msc : Run >>>services.msc. Here is a great site that explain what the different MS services do. As far as which one is causing problems, ummmm, welll, uuuuu, I don't know, but I would suggest switching to Mozilla Thunderbird.

arch13

Kill "realsched" while your at it. It's a the auto-updater for realplayer that allows in programs "approved" by realplayer, which is a nice way of saying crap you don't need.
Realplayer does not need to be started at startup to work correctly.
Also, unless you use the Kodak image software alot for a kodak digital camera you have, remove that as itmay represent wasted resources. However, if you do use it, by al means leave it be.

It's interesting that HP'd customized XP calls itself "hpsysdrv" unlike "sysdrv" in regualr unbranded windows.

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MontanaXVI

join the club did the exact same thing to me after a liveupdate session last night.

I just killed Norton, only thing running is AV the rest of the secruity stuff is all disabled with alerts off since AV is all I really wanted anyway.

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f6twister

Okay, after communicating back and forth with the Symantec tech, I finally found the program causing the problem and fixed that issue. However, I now have two new issues:

1. The tech guy had me try having Norton start from the Start-Up folder which meant I had to remove the program from the startup section of the registry. How do I get it back to the registry? My computer starts slower the way it is now.

2. Ever since that change, the window I am working in will often go gray like I clicked on the desktop. The problem is, it happens on its own. It doesn't matter if I am typing or just looking at the screen. I had to click on this window three times while typing this message because it went gray. How do I fix that?

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guthmund

First off the top of my head....

I see no reason for these to be up when you boot. realsched is realplayer crap....NCLAUNCH is an extension to flash and probably tied to a screensaver you've downloaded. The Kodak stuff you can probably disable even if you use the program a lot. The second looks to be an updater and you could do that manually if you wanted to. PowerReg scheduler can also be disabled.
WKCALREM is tied to Microsoft Works (calendar reminder?) and seems to be enabled on every HP computer I've run across. Completely worthless unless you use it regularly. I also recognize a lot Norton stuff, which you certainly don't want to get rid of and a lot of Earthlink stuff, which you certainly don't want to get rid of, unless you're not on Earthlink....?

Definately check out kebo's link to disable all the non-essential stuff. Coincidentally while you're in services.msc, you can check out the descriptions of all the stuff that's running and deal with it accordingly.

If you don't want to run>>>services.msc you can download a third party app called WinPatrol. I know several folks, who aren't particularly computer saavy, who use it. It seems pretty user-friendly and works well. The only problem I've seen with it is that it tries to put itself in the msconfig list, but you can disable it as well. Getting rid of all the extraneous stuff that starts up with Windows will certainly help you're PC start faster.

All that being said, you said the gray screen issue started after the change, which means if you solve problem #1, problem #2 will probably go away. Messing around in the registry isn't something I'd recommend, but if you must START>>>RUN>>>regedit will take you where you want to go. I'm pretty comfortable around computers, but even I try to avoid going in there when I can.

I'd recommend finding a third party registry clean up application and trying it first. In my opinion, they're all about the same, but I'll throw out some names of share/freeware stuff I've seen around..Regvac, RegscrubXP, RegistryMechanic...Here's a list at Download.com of some shareware stuff.

You didn't mention it, but I'd be remiss not to say a good dousing with Ad-Aware or Spybot wouldn't hurt either.

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f6twister

Thanks for the advice. The Works Calendar I actually use quite a bit which is the reason I'm leaving it there. I got rid of everything else already.

I run Ad-Aware and Spybot at least weekly, usually the night before or day after my antivirus runs.

Theh problem with the gray screen has actually been going on for a while now, the recent changes didn't cause the problem. It seems to happen a lot right after I reboot then slow down after about 1-2 days. It cuts down to about 1-2 times a day. Livable but still annoying and something I would like to fix if possible. Anyone know what could cause this type of problem?

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guthmund

Oh, I thought it started with the recent change. My mistake.

So, it just sounds like you've got something running that's stealing focus from the window you're working on, right? The whole screen doesn't flash gray, just the window you're working on....

Well, Tweak UI has the option under the General>>Focus menu where you can prevent other applications from stealing focus. Have you tried that?

Otherwise, I'd just try to systematically shut down programs running in the background until the problem stopped. Not all that practical and probably pretty time consuming, but it may be worth a shot. I mean, if you've got several programs actively working in the background (Norton, Anti-virus and such)while the computer is on, it's not inconceivable that that wouldn't be the cause.

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