Computer Takes longer at Boot screen, longer to sign in and crashes more! | Tech Support | Forums

Dear Conn09,

Relax friend. I faced exactly what you did on my desktop winxp professional 32bit non-.NET & came out of it.  I too installed Zemana Antilogger & then uninstalled it pronto. I'll tell you how I came out of it.

1) This "Found New Hardware" is pesky but not damaging. The dialogue box looks as if its from Microsoft but is not or rather may not be. There is no Microsoft mentioned on it. If it is from Microsoft it is some sort of silly mkt survey Microsoft is doing. Do not lose sleep over it……..yet. YOU MUST NEVER EVER CLICK ON ANY OF ITS OPTIONS. YOU MUST ONLY EXIT IT. CLICK ON AN OPTION & IT MIGHT PROVE HURTFUL. On your system tray this pesky guy gives you an icon which looks like garden scissors. Right?

2) BTW we XP guys are quite villainous from the hard disk guys point of view.  Vista is somewhat loved but only Win7 is the darling of them all. XP guys are a bunch of lousies while Vista guys can be tolerated to a certain extent. Neither does XP require oodles aka GB's of hard disk, nor oodles of RAM nor even a cpu which needs to run extraordinarily fast for brief periods at runtime (I am referring to .NET which needs faster cpu's). Therefore the hardware guys hate us. On the positive side Vista guys are hated lesser than XP guys. So chill out for………now because all this hoopla is mainly because of that. It could just be a silly mkt survey Microsoft is doing for its hardware associates but to which it does not want to lend the Microsoft name to!

2)This is however something which comes on at bootup so it could be a kernel level hook which is why it initializes so fast & appears within 3 minutes of booting up; in fact before you've completed booting. Even so do not lose sleep over it…… yet. After your problem is solved or maybe before you need a rootkit cleaner anyway. In the succeeding post I'll give you that forum thread name – I do not readily recall it & it is not now on my recent posts list.

3)I've noticed it on my desktop ONLY WHEN I REMOVE MY EXISTING ANTI KEYLOGGER. I DO NOT REMOVE my antilogger permanently BUT ONLY TO REINSTALL IT ONCE AGAIN.BTW

4)Why do I uninstall my antilogger if all that I wish to do is to reinstall it once again?! Because my antilogger sometimes does not initialize properly. Some other impish app or process knocks it off its pedestal. Do not be naive into believing that the imp is always only a "non-Microsoft character". It could even be msims hooking your keyboard to spy on you. Mine did & still tries to do. BTW you do have the option to either disable it, let ms messenger icon on your system tray (the one which says signed in & has a silhouette of a head on a bust) run only in the background, or let it not start on bootup- msims that is. DO NOT HOWEVER DISABLE msims.

5)What are the items aka processes which start at your bootup? Keep that list thin & relevant. Cut flab. Do it carefully & not unwisely. Consult this forum

6)Do these things to come out of the problem. I did these things & came out of the problem:-

1. First thing – switch off internet completely
2. Clean your traces first with History Cleaner Pro (I got it from http://www.giveawayoftheday.com when Ashraf reviewed it), followed by CCleaner latest freeware version. DO NOT USE East-Tec Eraser 2009 version 9.5 "UNLESS YOU UNDERSTAND IT THOROUGHLY. THAT IS AN EXCELLENT APP BUT VERY VERY VERY POWERFUL"
3. Use Glarys Utilities – pro or free (check this blog site – some have it). First do a one-click-maintenance followed by the all other moduless except for System tools. DO NOT USE SYSTEM TOOLS AT THIS JUNCTURE WITHIN GLARYS UTILITIES.
4. Don't even go near Advanced SysCare Pro. I cannot prove why. I intuited & just stayed away from it. If you do have deep emotional attachment to this guy USE ONLY SIMPLE MODE IN REGISTRY CLEANING. STAY AWAY FROM DEEP SCAN REGISTRY SCAN TILL YOU UNDERSTAND IT OK?
5. Use 1 step optimizer in WinOptimizer 2010 Advanced after you have disabled its registry clean option. It will wipe off various traces. After doing this come out of 1 stop optimizer in WinOptimizer 2010 Advanced. Go to its Registry Optimizer. Use it. Don't blindly use it but accept or reject certain things. If in doubt, don't remove the thing you have doubts about. Intelligently this bloke creates a restore point so that registry cleansed can be reverted to what it was before you cleaned it. So you are double safe anyway.
6. Use WinUtilities Pro 9.41 for only 2 things – history cleaning everything except "prefetch files" & for registry cleaning. Create backups (I prefer a restore point in this case rather than a backup) before & after all these things. Use a notebook & a pen if required. Name your back up in an "idiot-proof manner" aka "History clean Feb 18 2010 1532 hrs" etc. That way you won't get shafted by any of these apps
7. Repeat point 6 with jvPowerTools 2009. Why go to this guy last? Man this guy is like wow – a kind of port of last resort. That is why I follow this sequence

• Do all this & you'd be out of the woods just like I was. Stay cool throughout.
• BTW you cannot install the excellent antilogger I have – SnoopFree Privacy Shield 1.0.7 simply because it runs only on XP. HOWEVER DO NOT FOLLOW THIS BLINDLY. PLEASE RECONFIRM THIS BECAUSE THIS WAS WHEN I CHECKED SOME TIME AGO. THAT & THE FACT THAT I HAVE HAD XP PROFESSIONAL 32 BIT NON-.NET FOR AS LONG AS I CAN REMEMBER. MAYBE THIS EXCELLENT APP NOW COVERS VISTA AS WELL. CHECK IT OK?
• Judiciously create a restore before & after every move (in every app) & give it the kind of idiot proof name I gave you

You'll be definitely out of the woods my friend

Ramesh

Hi Sandeep!

The other point I am responding to is the issue regarding having several apps just for history cleaning. On this issue I respect your difference in perspective. I am posting merely to explain why I became a believer in "multi-apps" to "history clean" rather than using only 1 app. This is an IMHO issue:-

1) Whenever I use a new app I read its log report purely as a matter of self interest so that I do not have to suffer a swim in a sea of apps. I've noticed that all the apps I mentioned clean different logs.They do not duplicate their efforts

2) I also inferrred this is how Microsoft wanted it. History Cleansing requires that a developer needs to know from Microsoft directly as to which logs can be cleaned safely so that some important functionality of the OS is not hurt. No good OS will be willing to suffer loss of reputation simply because of bad coding by a History Cleaner app. Its bad enough for an OS to suffer from its own mistakes. Besides the OS as you already know stores history in several different logs. I infer that Microsoft being a shrewd company does not wish to reveal all its log addresses to any one single developer. It prefers to reveal a little to Peter, a little to Paul, some to Jacob & a little to Simon. Which is why each cleaner cleans different things. I have even read some logs – only to discover that it contains just a number (which means something to Microsoft)

If each cleaner is a safe app & each cleans different things I gain precisely because I use more than 1 app & not just 1. Besides I whet them before I trust them.

IMHO

Ramesh