Guest Ray K Posted October 26, 2008 Posted October 26, 2008 Yesterday I installed W2K over ME in a friend's computer. Works okay, except boot time is well over two minutes, measured from the splash screen to the appearance of all the desktop icons. At several points, the screen is just a pure blue/green. Once, it remains that way as long as 25 seconds, with just the mouse pointer visible and a very brief one-time flashing of the hourglass, before the next dialog box appears. By contrast, my computer with the same W2K boots in about a minute. I noticed several differences between the computers. 1. In my computer, there is a WINNT directory; in her computer, it's called WINDOWS. Regardless of the name, the contents of the folders are similar. 2. My computer has a boot.ini file; hers doesn't. Hers has a boot.dos file (mind doesn't), but its content is nothing like that of boot.ini. Could/should I copy boot.ini from my computer into hers? 3. Neither computer has an msconfig file, although at one time I know mine did. Maybe Crap Cleaner, AdAware, or Spybot removed it. Looking at Administrative Tools/Event Viewer/Application Log, there were four Warning entries on her computer. Typically, they read: Detection of product '{22B90C20-2697-4790-A95E-56463563 F2EF}' feature "AV_DVP' failed during request for component "{E39DB87F-D2CB42FF-AAA4-72E708258DC6}' The other three Warnings also include the reference AV_DVP, so they all have something to do with the anti-virus program (part of System Mechanic). But the AV and firewall portion of SM, while installed, are not running. After writing the above, I allowed AV and the firewall to run. It didn't shorten the boot time, even though those four Warnings disappeared. So I can't blame the SM program. One other point. I switch my internet cable between her computer and mine. Her boot time is not affected by the presence or absence of the cable connection to the ethernet card. Thanks for your comments/suggestions. Ray
Guest Dave Patrick Posted October 26, 2008 Posted October 26, 2008 Re: Very slow startup There is no supported upgrade path from ME to Windows 2000. You must perform a clean install. To do a clean install, either boot the Windows 2000 install CD-Rom or setup disks. The set of four install disks can be created from your Windows 2000 CD-Rom; change to the \bootdisk directory on the CD-Rom and execute makeboot.exe (from dos) or makebt32.exe (from 32 bit) and follow the prompts. (Note: If your drive controller is not natively supported then you'll want to boot the Windows 2000 install CD-Rom. Then *F6* very early and very important (at setup is inspecting your system) in the setup to prevent drive controller detection, and select S to specify additional drivers. Then later you'll be prompted to insert the manufacturer supplied Windows 2000 driver for your drive controller in drive "A") Setup inspects your computer's hardware configuration and then begins to install the Setup and driver files. When the Windows 2000 Professional screen appears, press ENTER to set up Windows 2000 Professional. Read the license agreement, and then press the F8 key to accept the terms of the license agreement and continue the installation. When the Windows 2000 Professional Setup screen appears, all the existing partitions and the unpartitioned spaces are listed for each physical hard disk. Use the ARROW keys to select the partitions Press D to delete an existing partition, If you press D to delete an existing partition, you must then press L (or press ENTER, and then press L if it is the System partition) to confirm that you want to delete the partition. Repeat this step for each of the existing partitions When all the partitions are deleted press F3 to exit setup, (to avoid unexpected drive letter assignments with your new install) then restart the pc then when you get to this point in setup again select the unpartitioned space, and then press C to create a new partition and specify the size (if required). Windows will by default use all available space. Be sure to apply SP4 and these two below to your new install before connecting to any network. Internet included. (sasser, msblast) http://download.microsoft.com/download/E/6/A/E6A04295-D2A8-40D0-A0C5-241BFECD095E/W2KSP4_EN.EXE http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-043.mspx http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-049.mspx Then Rollup 1 for Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?amp;displaylang=en&familyid=B54730CF-8850-4531-B52B-BF28B324C662&displaylang=en -- Regards, Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup. Microsoft Certified Professional Microsoft MVP [Windows] http://www.microsoft.com/protect "Ray K" wrote: > Yesterday I installed W2K over ME in a friend's computer. Works okay, > except boot time is well over two minutes, measured from the splash screen > to the appearance of all the desktop icons. At several points, the screen > is just a pure blue/green. Once, it remains that way as long as 25 > seconds, with just the mouse pointer visible and a very brief one-time > flashing of the hourglass, before the next dialog box appears. By > contrast, my computer with the same W2K boots in about a minute. > > I noticed several differences between the computers. > > 1. In my computer, there is a WINNT directory; in her computer, it's > called WINDOWS. Regardless of the name, the contents of the folders are > similar. > > 2. My computer has a boot.ini file; hers doesn't. Hers has a boot.dos file > (mind doesn't), but its content is nothing like that of boot.ini. > Could/should I copy boot.ini from my computer into hers? > > 3. Neither computer has an msconfig file, although at one time I know mine > did. Maybe Crap Cleaner, AdAware, or Spybot removed it. > > > Looking at Administrative Tools/Event Viewer/Application Log, there were > four Warning entries on her computer. Typically, they read: > > Detection of product '{22B90C20-2697-4790-A95E-56463563 > F2EF}' feature "AV_DVP' failed during request for component > "{E39DB87F-D2CB42FF-AAA4-72E708258DC6}' > > The other three Warnings also include the reference AV_DVP, so they all > have something to do with the anti-virus program (part of System > Mechanic). But the AV and firewall portion of SM, while installed, are not > running. > > After writing the above, I allowed AV and the firewall to run. It didn't > shorten the boot time, even though those four Warnings disappeared. So I > can't blame the SM program. > > One other point. I switch my internet cable between her computer and mine. > Her boot time is not affected by the presence or absence of the cable > connection to the ethernet card. > > Thanks for your comments/suggestions. > > Ray > > >
Guest Ray K Posted October 26, 2008 Posted October 26, 2008 Re: Very slow startup Thanks Dave for the lengthy, detailed instructions. Right now I'm exhausted from yesterday's marathon, dealing with one issue after another. I'll try your suggestions soon. The cleanest way for me to save existing data would be to buy a new hard drive to be installed as C:, and use the current C: drive as D:. Her computer does not have a CD burner. Of course, I could use a large flash drive. I tried removing 175 oddball font file from her FONTS directory; that improved boot time a few seconds. As I recall, there is some program that monitors the sequence and times of each step of the boot process. I'll have to try to track it down while going through the ordeal of a clean install. Regards, Ray
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