Hi thanks for all the advise

here is some more info ram 256 hd 40gb amd athlon 1.73 ghz speed

i noticed that msn messenger was starting at the beginning so i have stopped that by going in and unticking things. i do have kazaa lite but that does not run at start up.

is it worth me taking a look in misconfig.........

oh yeah the last thing to load is zone alarms. should i set this run just before i connect to the internet or what? usually i can start using things prior to it finish loading.

once my computer is on and the icons appear it is not ready to use it takes a minute or two.

in the start bar i can see yahoo msg zone alarms msn msg norton printer spyware gaurd go back ms money volume key board and sound max. hope this helps.