Patches,

Good for you on your thought process and attempt for self-diagnosis. What you attempted in my mind was the first step.

Now, by chance did you also install some bundled software that you might not have addressed?

Also, how about booting into Safe Mode just to see if the boot time improves. This information might point us in the right direction

DA

Yes i'm assuming there's software. I also have an hp digital camera so i'm not sure what to uninstall and what not to. I started in safe mode and the boot time did improve. I'm running xp 2. thanks

XP,

Try this click - Start - click Run, now in the run box Type Msconfig now hit ok, Window opens at the top look for the "Service Tab" click it, those are all the Services Running on the pc, look for the (hp services) and remove the check mark in the box there may be 1 or more services for the printer, click apply and ok and reboot,

See if the boot time is better if it is then it may be 1 of the printer services causing the issue.

Since this issue started with the printer install you may consider uninstalling it & reinstalling the hp printer software.

You are not the only with hp printer software causing slow boot time...

Thanks i tried the msconfig and that didn't help but I'll tell you what i finally found out. My zone alarm was not acting right, would load sometimes then then next it wouldn't so i uninstalled and everything went back to normal. What could have caused zone alarm to do this. Is there another program i can use in it's place or should i just try downloading a new version? thanks for everyones responses.

You might try a restore to a point before the new printer was installed. Afterwards if the computer runs the normal way, try to determine what extra stuff is packaged with the new printer and see if you can avoid that. If the restore works, write down the programs that are loaded at startup - via msconfig and the startup tab. Run the new printer software and do another msconfig to see what is newly checked in the startup tab. I would not expect any new program to be vital on startup just by adding a printer.

HP historically installs one or more entries into the startup during a printer installation. Their thinking must be that we users are too impatient to allow the printer to take a second to load on-demand. In my experience I have yet to find one HP entry which when disabled had a negative effect on the printer's operation.

My question regarding bundled software was made as Patches reported the disabling of the HP entries, but the possibility of the software was not addressed. Some printer brands and some models do come with bulky software.

DA

well you can try to reinstall your zone alarm (would be my first choice) and see if it works properly again it may have simply become corrupted, reinstalling may fix it, you definitely do not want to run with out a firewall so in the mean time at the very least go to control panel, security and turn on the built in firewall.
There are other free firewalls available, you can try a new version of zone alarm if there is one newer than you had or try another brand.
Here are some links with the other free options
Free Firewall
and from the computercops list
Lists of freeware firewalls