It wasn't having problems at all over a week ago, it ran just fine. 1GB of RAM
I started tinkering with the registry trying to figure out how to totally rid my computer of itunes(totally different problem that I don't care about at the moment). I was getting help thru emails and over the phone from the guy who built my PC. Just to clear it up right now, the only thing I touched in my registry was entries/values that had to do with iPOD and iTunes.
I would just disconnect my PC and bring to his house to fix it but I moved across the country and that's not possible now.
Here's the problem that I have that appeared after one of the many reboots I had made while trying to get rid of itunes, it took like 2 minutes to log in from the welcome screen. My wallpaper would show up immediately, but the rest of the desktop was missing. It takes several minutes for that to show up, and now my quicklaunch doesn't appear.
I can open programs quickly and they all work well and fast, but right clicking anything on desktop, opening menus, folders, files, hopping folder to folder takes FOREVER to finish commands. Say I click the start menu, it takes a couple minutes for menu to show up, then I click on "my computer" it takes another several minutes for that to show up. Then I click on one of my drives (I had 2 other drives, a 120GB external, and then a 40GB drive that I took out of my old nonfunctioning HP) it takes forever for the folders and files to show up after I open one of the drives. I ended up opening my computer and disconnecting and removing the the old 40GB HP drive because the guy who built my PC said it may be dying and be the reason for my computer dragging and being slowed down to a crawl. I rebooted again and there was no change, so it seems it wasn't the old drive's fault. I got tired of all the emailing back and forth and over the phone troubleshooting that I was doing with the guy trying to figure out what is wrong with my computer. I've been dealing with it for several days now because the internet works fine and quickly and I need it to pay bills. I know spyware and viruses are not much of an issue with my computer because how often I did scans cleaning of such stuff.
Does anyone here know what could be the reason my computer has been slowed down to a crawl? An d what can I do to fix it? I'm about to sell it or give it away. I'm planning on getting a mac mini.
Remember all programs work just fine and at their normal speed.
Oh I was told what could be happening is that my drive maybe dying.
Thank you in advance to anyone who can help me fix this or give me an answer as to what's wrong with it.

~Tom

Hmm dont know if this is the problem but do you have Norton internet Security?
Because the other day my dads was doing the exact same when he booted it up and he mentioned something to do with Norton. If you do have Norton reply back and when my dad returns from work i will find the solution

Nah, no norton. I got rid of that over a year ago and have been using AVG. :sad:

Welcome to PCHF

Why don't we try to restore your last known good registry...

When booting your PC, at the first screen tap the F8 key until you get a menu that includes "safe mode" etc. Highlight the option "last known good configuration" and let Windows load.

If that has little or no effect, have you got System Restore enabled currently?

:smiley: Hi Tom,

Welcome to PCHF from me as well.

Two thoughts; you may have inadvertently deleted a file that was important, and if Hengis' suggestion doesn't work, try putting your XP CD into your drive and clicking on Start, Run, and type in sfc /scannow, exactly as shown with a space between sfc and /.

This will identify and replace any system files that may have become corrupt or been deleted.

Second, and this is kind of out there, can you please go to your C:\Windows\System32\INF folder and sort all of those files by size. See if you have an inordinate number of 0kb files. If so delete them all, (0kb), and reboot your PC.

Well that at least gives you three things to try.

Look forward to your reply,

TTFN

LGW