Norton Internet Security 2003 ->Slow

[Babylon]

Just wondered if anyone had a clever tweak or system to get NIS to start up faster. I'm running windows XP and have an 80gb hd (60gb free), AthlonXP 2200, and 512MB DDR Ram.

The problem is that NIS is very slow to start when i log on, over 60 seconds, close to 2 or 3 minutes and it's very irratating. I defrag my PC often so i don't think that's the problem.

Cheers.

[doctorgonzo]

Are you sure it is NIS that is causing the problem? Slow startup can be caused by a number of issues.

[Babylon]

Definatly. Before i installed it my PC was very fast. Also, i can tell everything else has loaded (desktop, trayicons, all that stuff is there) but NAV and NIS icons don't appear for another 2 or 3 mins :/ (and i've used bootlogging tools which give you a nice insight to what is taking so long :/ )

[doctorgonzo]

It's odd that both are so slow. Have you tried disabling one or the other to figure out if they are both slow?

[Tuf]

Is NAV set to scan on boot?

[Babylon]

No, definatly not ;) That would drive me insane :)

I used MS Bootvis to test my computer and came up with these figures:


Both NAV and NIS disabled (but they still both load in the tray).

Computer boots in around 35seconds, but when loging on to a user account there is a further 38seconds of high usage disk activity.


Both NAV and NIS enabled.

48 Seconds to start and then when i log on to my account a further 40 to 70 seconds at least of intense disk usage

I've seen it worse but we all hate waiting for things to load and it gets quite frustating. Something i find quite interesting is that a majority of the time the Disk Utilization info is a flat line at 100%. Now to me, that seems like a bad thing - the HD is being overworked but i could be wrong?

If i load NIS, and not NAV, or vice versa, it adds about 10 to 15 seconds to the first figures, but it seems when i do both it's the over kill.

Last but not least, if i disable everything related to sysmantec (services, the lot), the computer starts in around 35 seconds, and when i select my account it takes only about 10 seconds for all disk activity to stop.

Any ideas?

Just an additional Note: For the boot times i loaded from a complete shutdown and then waited for major disk activity to stop before selecting my account to log on to.

There is a reason behind that which is when i just log on to my account straight away (even though the HD is loading like crazy) i often get problems with the mouse freezing, although that's another problem i feel it's worth a mention