You may have too many programs in start up, anything not needed right away you can remove from start up, they do not go away from your programs of if you have a desktop icon so you can call it up when you want to use it. Go to start type in msconfig, then click tab that says start up, take tic/check out of things you do not need immediately, by doing this boot up /start up will be faster. If you do not have windows updates on automatic, then check to see if you have critical important ones you need to install.

I don't have the answer but if you don't mind, I have a couple questions that might help someone else answer...

When you say "15 minutes to 30 minutes for my system to do whatever it does when it boots up", do you mean:
(1) 15 minutes to 30 minutes before your "Desktop" even appears
(2) 15 minutes to 30 minutes until your computer settled down (Desktop has appeared but the system seems unresponsive). If so, does the hard drive activity light keep flashing?


Assuming the second scenario...
(1) Is your AV set to do a full scan every boot?
(2) Any chance you have a second AV (or real time anti-malware/anti-spyware) installed that might also be trying to scan at the same time?

As for a spell checker for IE8, I don't know. No problem in Firefox, in fact I see a glaring red underlined "anti-malware" above right now. :-)

Thanks aputernut. I went to msconfig and it's very interesting. I'm not new to computers for whatever it's worth. I got my first one in February, 1990. But along the line the computers got smarter and I got much older, and slower in understanding my computer. I still have my computer interests but get tired of digging into the why's and where for's as I use to. I'll study what you suggested. Thanks.

Chugger, my boot up screen appears with my currently existing 71 icons. I watch each one of them sort of flicker as they do whatever their thing is that causes it. That takes about a half minute. My next step is either to click on AOL or Windows Explorer. When I do nothing happens. With a little patience I can usually click on one of my computer proprietary programs and it will come up in a minute or so. But, clicking AOL or Explorer icon is like watching paint dry. No matter what I do it takes 15 to 30 minutes for their data to appear. I'm not sure I've clarified anything. Thanks for asking. Gene

How long has it been since you cleared the cache for AOL and/or Explorer? Also...have you tried defragging your system? These are easy tasks that most people overlook when they have the problem that your system is experiencing but doing both can make a big difference speed wise if they haven't been done in a long time.

Just a thought.

Anne

Yeah, no matter how you look at it, that is slow, very slow. I've only fixed my own computers so wouldn't know where to begin. Back in my Windows days(Linux now), I kept a backup(complete image of my drive, created while it was running smoothly) and would likely have resorted to a restoration rather than learning the real cause, or developing troubleshooting skills.

If clearing cache and defragging doesn't bring it up to speed, it might be interesting to poke around in Task Manager right after booting up. See which programs/processes are consuming the most memory, hogging the most processor, etc. Just something else to try.

And... maybe start in safe mode and see how it does then. I'm not sure it would be much of a clue for me, but for someone else it might be.

Did this just start happening ? Or was it a gradual change. That would be telling.

If it just started up it's probably related to one new change. In that case I would suspect an antivirus scan at startup. I've had that happen before. It's also possible to have a defragger run at startup.

One way to tell that is if you open Task Manager and under the Processes tab, check the I/O Reads and I/O Writes columns. Click on the the column's heading so it shows what's highest at the top. Click again if necessary for the correct ordering.
(If those columns are not showing you might have to go up to View>>Select Columns and add them in.)
But if one program is doing a lot of I/O (reading and writing to disk), that'd be suspicious.

Same thing with the cpu column. You'd want to look for something using a lot of cpu cycles.

By the way, if you're having trouble getting Task Manager to start, use Ctrl-Alt-Del and choose Task Manager.

Also in Task Manager click on the Applications tab and see if any programs are shown as "not responding". That could be something so cpu or I/O intensive that it won't even report to Task Manager.

Are you positive you have enough memory ?
In Task Manager, for Physical memory, what do you have for Total/Cached/Available/Free ?

Next I'd suspect Startup items as aputternut suggested.
This can be a little tricky to track down, but not impossible.
You can download the free "Starter" program by Codestuff and click on the Startup tab, which will show you the major things set to startup at boot time.
http://codestuff.obninsk.ru/products_starter.html
But it's not exhaustive.

If you really want the full picture, which can be a bit daunting, you can download the free RunScanner program and run it in Expert Mode.
To scan, use the 3rd tab.
After it completes, the 2nd tab has an "Autostart" sub-tab, showing everything that's set to auto start.
But it's so detailed and comprehensive it can be hard to interpret. It's really kind of an expert level program.
Nevertheless, sometimes some weird malware or virus type thing can show up there.
Codestuff's Starter is much easier to use.

As an aside, research has shown that defraging isn't really as much of an issue as people have thought. Nevertheless I still do it.
But it's not going to cause the kind of startup problems you're having.

Let us know what you find out.

Candler, I wonder if you mean Internet Explorer rather than Windows Explorer? What type of internet connection do you have?

Thanks to all who have helped. A few days ago I did something that, at least for the present, is allowing quicker access to the Net and to AOL. I don't know why it is doing what it is but I'm certainly glad.

I had accessed my Desktop. I had clicked numerous times on both Internet Explorer and/or AOL with no reaction. As usual a screen would start and then quit (which started my initial question). I was just waiting and waiting as usual.

I began clicking the bottom of my screen on my Task Bar. I've done that before. I just to see if there were any other Processes, etc. I could delete that might speed up things. I'd usually just right click once but this time I clicked at least twice or maybe more. Surprisingly, Google (my home page) came alive and so did AOL.

I have no idea what is happening just by me clicking the Task Bar. I am not clicking on anything within its menu. I'm glad it works. Thanks you kbarb, et.al. Gene

Do you use AOL browser or the newer AOL desktop? please read this article, AOL has been a problem for many yrs. I advise most seniors who I help to get rid of it ASAP. AOL browser has not been updated since 2003.

http://www.ehow.com/about_6809396_difference-aol-browser-internet-explorer_.html

I'd agree with that - get rid of anything AOL - nothing but trouble.

But you're saying you RIGHT clicked, and a browser window came up, as well as AOL ?
Right clicking doesn't launch programs, it just brings up a context menu of choices of things you can do. Are you sure you mean RIGHT click, and not LEFT click ?

Also, when you say your Google home page came up, that's a page, not a browser. Which browser came up to show you your Google home page : IE, Firefox, Chrome . . . something else ?

Well, of course you are right that it is not a browser that I access. If I want a browser I can get it through the home page. I don't prefer an immediate browser. Just for the heck of it I went to IE and AOL's. Slow access and loaded with unwanted stuff.

We all have different wants. Mine is researching for info and answers. On my computer left clicking the Task Bar (not Start Task Manager etc) does nothing. Right clicking seems to interrupt the computer enough to overcome whatever is slowing it down. I hope it continues.

I have a few friends who are pretty computer savvy. I'll see what thoughts they have. I'll likely also keep looking to the Google home page. Good luck to you folks. Thanks for your help. Gene

I think actually it is in fact a browser you are using to get to the Google home page.
There isn't really any other way to get a home page.

A browser is just a piece of software like IE, Firefox, Chrome, or Safari that you use to see pages on the internet.

The way you state it is actually the reverse of what's going on . . .
Instead of " If I want a browser I can get it through the home page," what really is going on is you open a browser like IE or Firefox, and that brings up the home page.

Anyway, it doesn't make a whole lot of difference as far as troubleshooting.
I was just curious what was actually being launched when you said you got the Google home page.

Btw, you have tried rebooting, right ?