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General Category => Technology and Programming => Topic started by: Mr. Actionist on September 13, 2008, 07:32:07 am

Title: Laptop boots up slowly.
Post by: Mr. Actionist on September 13, 2008, 07:32:07 am: Ok, here's the situation:

Today I downloaded a bunch of stuff that supposedly would make my XP look like Vista. I kinda like Vista's theme, so I figured I'd give it a shot. The link is:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Vista_lizing_your_old_XP_computer_the_ultimate_tu/

I have no idea whether it was something in there, or the fact that I replaced a .dll in my system32 folder with something that would apparently let me view videos in Grandia 2 (PC Port), but now my laptop takes about ten minutes each time to start up. The desktop works; I can see the wallpaper and cursor, but there's no start bar or anything for ages. Oh yeah, I also installed Yahoo Widgets as part of the above instructable. I don't know if that would make a difference or not.

Any help would be appreciated.
Title: Laptop boots up slowly.
Post by: Christophomicus on September 13, 2008, 08:05:32 am: Wow man, heads up, I'm doing the same thing with Vista-izing an XP, and I just used StyleXP, grabbed a Visual Style from online and did it that way. Works, for the most part, a treat. I'd do a repair on XP and do it that way but there's probably someone here who knows what they're talking about more than I do.

Unless you want all the super fancy functions of Vista, idk. This is what mine looks like and it does the job fine (it's not PERFECT, but it's more than adequate enough):

big image (Click to reveal)
(http://gamingw.net/pubaccess/41050/vista%20style.png)

So yeah.
Title: Laptop boots up slowly.
Post by: goat on September 13, 2008, 09:22:11 am: Start uninstalling em and see whats causing it.
Title: Laptop boots up slowly.
Post by: HL on September 13, 2008, 09:31:42 am: Why don't you just get Windows Vista instead of using a fairly subpar Windows theme or tools to emulate (well at least Christo's looks drat terrible compared to the real thing), it's not that bad of an OS ever since SP1 came out, and it's definitely leaps and bounds ahead of where Windows XP was in SP1, imho?

But yeah, uninstall it one by one and see whats causing it, I wouldn't be surprised if it was the Yahoo thingy, tbh.
Title: Laptop boots up slowly.
Post by: Carrion Crow on September 13, 2008, 03:22:37 pm: Make sure you have at least 2 gigs of ram if you intend on running the real thing though...
Title: Laptop boots up slowly.
Post by: Mama Luigi on September 13, 2008, 04:38:11 pm: Yeah all that crap is going to be less efficient than actually having Vista. Have you just not upgraded because you don't want to spend money on an upgrade or are you one of those adamant Vista boycotters or something???
Title: Laptop boots up slowly.
Post by: dragonx on September 13, 2008, 05:33:38 pm: my vista theme is better (http://gamingw.net/pubaccess/27161/myvistaisbetter.png)
Title: Laptop boots up slowly.
Post by: goat on September 13, 2008, 08:08:29 pm: Quote from: HL on September 13, 2008, 09:31:42 am
Why don't you just get Windows Vista instead of using a fairly subpar Windows theme or tools to emulate (well at least Christo's looks drat terrible compared to the real thing), it's not that bad of an OS ever since SP1 came out, and it's definitely leaps and bounds ahead of where Windows XP was in SP1, imho?

You're definitely overselling Vista's piss poor SP1, which wasn't even AS good as SP1 for XP. And I may be going on out on a limb, but the worst possible reason to change your OS is because you want it to look nicer. We should also have a good idea of his system specs before we go telling him to upgrade to vista for the pretty visuals.
Title: Laptop boots up slowly.
Post by: Neophyte on September 13, 2008, 08:38:33 pm: Yeah, it depends on what he wants. Vista isn't just for visuals, because it does have some good new features in it. But judging by what he wants, it isn't worth it.

Definitely start uninstalling the programs and see what's causing it. I used to be into all that XP looking like Vista shit, but it was a waste of time for me. I finally settled with a very minimalist theme(that uses no resources or programs at all) that I've liked for a long time now. Performance should ALWAYS come before visuals.

Christo, StyleXP sucks. Use Windowblinds, at least it has transparency man. As much as I hate it, it's the best program for what you want to do.
Title: Laptop boots up slowly.
Post by: Carrion Crow on September 13, 2008, 09:55:28 pm: I would not recommend styling your XP theme since I've done that many times and every time my PC slowed down to a snail's pace.
Title: Laptop boots up slowly.
Post by: Mr. Actionist on September 13, 2008, 10:52:37 pm: My Specs:

1.7Gh Pentium M
512Mb RAM
128Mb Radeon 9600 Mobility

You can see why I don't actually want Vista on my system.

I uninstalled yahoo widgets, nothing changed. The name of the codec I 'installed' (all I did was add the .dll to the system32 folder and install a .reg file) is Cinepak. It (assumedly, I can't think of anything else that would have done it) made my sound not work. I'm going to re-install the sound driver, though.

In regards to the vista-ising, the only thing I got up to in regards to 'installation' were these things (cut from the tutorial):

2. Drag the fonts from XP_Vista_Conversion_Package\Fonts\SegoeUI to C:\WINDOWS\Fonts

3. Drag the contents of XP_Vista_Conversion_Package\Theme to C:\WINDOWS\Resources\Themes

4. Drag the contents of XP_Vista_Conversion_Package\Wallpaper to C:\WINDOWS\Web\Wallpaper

5. The Vista screensavers are located in XP_Vista_Conversion_Package\Screensavers\Vista Screensavers; some sweet extra screen savers are in XP_Vista_Conversion_Package\Screensavers\RSS. Drag the contents of either or both into C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32

6. Make sure you can see hidden folders (My Computer-> Tools-> Folder Options-> View tab-> select Show Hidden Files and Folders-> OK), then drag the contents of XP_Vista_Conversion_Package\User Images into C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\User Account Pictures\Default Pictures. You can undo that setting immediately afterward if you wish them hidden again.

7. IN XP_Vista_Conversion_Package\Enhancements, run setup.exe to install Cleartype. Allow it to run after installing, checkmark the box to turn it on, then click OK.

8. In XP_Vista_Conversion_Package\Enhancements\Aero Cursors, right-click the Install.inf and choose Install.

9. Drag Vista.Emulation.dll from XP_Vista_Conversion_Package\Games to C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32

Now, I deleted Vista.Emulation.dll because I thought it might be a problem, being in my system32 folder, but that made no difference, either. By the way, I got the tutorial link wrong, it's

http://www.instructables.com/id/WinXP-Overhaul-Guide-How-to-make-it-look-like-Vis/

I'm doing a virus scan with Kaspersky at the moment, but which other programs should I uninstall?
Title: Laptop boots up slowly.
Post by: goat on September 13, 2008, 11:04:56 pm: Whichever other ones you've installed recently, before things started going wacky. If that doesn't work, you could use system restore to undo changes you've done since your most recent restore point.
Title: Laptop boots up slowly.
Post by: Mr. Actionist on September 14, 2008, 12:50:08 am: ...except system restore won't let me do that.

"Your computer cannot be restored to [date].

No changes have been made to your computer."

I've tried it a couple of times now. Also, my virus scan only picked up one object, which was deleted. Still no change. The only other thing I installed recently was the Adobe Creative Suite Master Collection; is it possible that could be screwing my computer?
Title: Laptop boots up slowly.
Post by: Christophomicus on September 14, 2008, 12:13:19 pm: Quote from: Neophyte on September 13, 2008, 08:38:33 pm
Christo, StyleXP sucks. Use Windowblinds, at least it has transparency man. As much as I hate it, it's the best program for what you want to do.

Last time I did that I killed my computer 'cause I downloaded an infected WindowsBlinds. Asking for a clean one in the Zoo did not yield good effects. I'm happy to stick to this one for now :O
Title: Laptop boots up slowly.
Post by: goat on September 14, 2008, 08:28:51 pm: If you goto start/run/type 'msconfig' in the prompt and hit enter, the startup tab will show you what windows loads on start up, and you can click the checkmarks on the left to disable them. If even after disabling all or most of those, you still have long startup times, try loading windows in safe mode (f8 before you see the loading screen) and seeing if windows loads up fine then. Is your system slow to load other things, or just the OS?
Title: Laptop boots up slowly.
Post by: Mr. Actionist on September 15, 2008, 08:56:44 am: Well, I think it was something to do with Grandia 2. I just ended up formatting, because I need it for school and I didn't want to mess around trying to fix it and some other problems I had. Sorry for wasting your time.
Title: Laptop boots up slowly.
Post by: Barack Obama on September 15, 2008, 11:06:27 am: I haven't used anything other than the windows classic theme ever and I wish vista's "classic" theme didn't look so half-assed.
Title: Laptop boots up slowly.
Post by: Terin on September 18, 2008, 12:57:53 am: I don't think Windows is the culprit -- I'd be more inclined that all your dilly-dallying caused you to accidentally install something that shouldn't be on your machine and is slowing it the hell down.

What I would suggest is to open the run menu (ala Start -> Run), and then type in msconfig. When you load msconfig, click the Startup tab and disable EVERYTHING under it. Under the Services tab, disable all of the non-Microsoft ones, except for your virus scanner (which you had better have) (you can hide all the Microsoft services with a checkbox on it).

If that doesn't give you significant speed improvements, then I would agree that it's something with the new files you downloaded/installed. But I seriously would try this route first.

--Terin