Ok. I think holding down shift only effects the programs present in the startup folder of the start menu. If you try hunting through this and see if you can remove any programs, this will hopefully make it load to a similar speed to when you held down shift.

Another thing you could try. Is to right click on the taskbar and select task manager, then select the performance tab. Check to see what the memory usage is. I know Saint said that it should be fine with the amount of ram you have, but its best just to check everything to be sure. If your mem usage is over or near 256MB then thats proberly not helping either.

I have win 2000 and not quite as many programs as you open. And I am running at about 220MB usage at the moment, so you maybe you mught be pushing it, but check and find out.