SP! Slow Down

Since installing SP1, my computer seems to have slowed down. After booting I used to be able to immediately click on a desktop shortcut or a quick launch shortcut and have the program open almost instantly. Now there is a delay of as long as 5 - 10 seconds. It gives the appearance of being full booted, but obviously something is going on in background. I cleared temp and temp internet files. There are only the same two essential programs running in msconfig startup.

Anybody else have this problem or know of a fix?

Win XP home
Dell 8200
1.8 G
P4
512 Ram

Thanks

It looks like I got lucky with SP1.

I just read a report the other day about SP1 and I can't remember where it was, but it was saying that 60% of all users are having probs with it. Slowing down was specifically mentioned. I think the only fix is to uninstall SP1 and apply all the patches you can get from Windows Update instead. I'll have a look through my IE History and see if I can find the URL.

Here it is:

http://www.winxpnews.com/

I must confess....even though I really installed it just to see what havoc the SP would create, I have had zero problems. In fact, it might just boot a little quicker. I'd be lying to say that I expected a M$ patch to not create other problems, and I DO expect that sooner or later I will probably end up eating my words.......BUT, I did want to put some positive comments out there. So far, so good. :cool:

rwinegar,

I thought you were the one telling people that they are crazy not to be installing SP1? huh.... :D

Truthfully wish I could help, but I haven't seen that issue yet. But I have heard about people having some weird problems after installing SP1.

You got me Brily. But that would still be my advice. I think this will be ironed out. I do not know if slow down is related to SP1.

I found massive slowdowns in my system too after installing SP1. Boot time was ridiculously long and applications took a long time to start

I found that by doing the following, my system is now back to the speed it was before SP1 was applied and booting is actually faster.

1) Download Bootvis from Microsofts site http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/platf...ot/BootVis.asp

2) Run Bootvis using the 'Optimize System' from the 'Trace' menu.

3) Defrag.

I actually did 2) and 3) twice...

4) The SP1 installation process empties the prefetch folder which needs to be rebuilt. In my case the whole folder disappeared (:confused: ) and I had to create a new one (C:\WINNT\PREFETCH). Prefetch helps in the speed that your system boots and applications load. (edit: this should happen automatically over time.)

5) Check that Prefetch is enabled in the registry HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters

0 - Disable Prefetching
1 - Enable Boot Prefetch
2 - Enable Application Prefetch
3 - Enable both Boot and Application prefetching (Default value)

Good luck....

System slow down after SP1 is just the tip of the iceberg. I found my Standby mode's royally screwed up as well. Standby is like what Hibernate used to be and the now Hibernate...well, it tries to restart but fails and I've to reboot.

I want out! But how do I get rid of SP1? I didn't choose the option to have uninstall available when installing SP1. What do I do now, wait for SP2?

Can I get rid of SP1 by using the original OS CDROM to "repair" the installation?

Let me chime in with my two cents. I've been running XP Pro for about five months now. Since day one I have only sang its praises. It has performed flawlessly for me, even on a somewhat older system: P3 500MHz, 384MB, 3 year old Gateway. Not a clunker, but not cutting edge, either.
I then went and installed SP1. I noticed an immediate slowdown and, more important, Outlook Express was hosed to the point where I was out of ways to try and get it to work.
So, as a last resort, I uninstalled SP1. Everything went back to the way it was. Speed back up to par, OE working fine, etc.
Don't know exactly what the problem was. I do know, though, that uninstalling SP1 solved it.
Depending upon my energy levels and aggravation tolerance, I may in the near future format and clean install XP once again. Then, first order of business would be to install SP1, and then everything else. Who knows? Maybe the order of install might make a difference.

Quote:

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Originally posted by rwinegar
You got me Brily. But that would still be my advice. I think this will be ironed out. I do not know if slow down is related to SP1.

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If it's only just started then it must be. Use system restore and go back to normal until Microsoft sort it out.

No hard feelings.

Good luck.

I don't know if this will help, but I installed SP1 twice and had problems, but I tried once more after unchecking everuthing in msconfig and rebooting first, and it went fine. I suspect that it doesn't always copy all the update files correctly. It kind of looks like XP gets fragmented more quickly than before, but it's hard to tell.

I had a heck of a time to download SP1. Took about 6 hours inclusive installation with my dial-up connection. During the download, I was disconnected more than a dozen times but was able to resume the download after reconnecting (that was good).
The installtion took just 10 minutes but I had all programs in system tray closed and NAV disabled which might have helped a good installation. All in all the download was 73MB from the WindowsUpdate site. So far, I have no problems with SP1, and starup has slowed down at all, still the same as before SP1.