Computer running very slow after installing SP2

[Guest]

I installed SP2 the other night. I prepped my computer as best I could (ran
the Spyware program, etc). Now my computer takes a long time to boot up, and
seems to run slower overall. The family is complaining. It is a Dell
Dimension 2400, Pentium IV at 2.4Ghz with 512K RAM. I have Norton Internet
Security, so I have turned off the Windows firewall.

I'm ready to run system restore and be done with it, unless anyone has a
suggestion. Thanks,

 

[CWatters]

I installed SP2 the other night. I prepped my computer as best I could (ran
the Spyware program, etc). Now my computer takes a long time to boot up, and
seems to run slower overall. The family is complaining. It is a Dell
Dimension 2400, Pentium IV at 2.4Ghz with 512K RAM. I have Norton Internet
Security, so I have turned off the Windows firewall.

I'm ready to run system restore and be done with it, unless anyone has a
suggestion. Thanks,

Does the task manager indicate any processes taking more than a few % of the
CPU?

 

[Rock]

I installed SP2 the other night. I prepped my computer as best I could (ran
the Spyware program, etc). Now my computer takes a long time to boot up, and
seems to run slower overall. The family is complaining. It is a Dell
Dimension 2400, Pentium IV at 2.4Ghz with 512K RAM. I have Norton Internet
Security, so I have turned off the Windows firewall.

I'm ready to run system restore and be done with it, unless anyone has a
suggestion. Thanks,

Don't give up on it yet. It can take several days and 3 or 4 reboots
for it to speed up. First defrag. The boot prefetch will kick in after
the 3 rd reboot. It takes several days for the prefetch folder to be
rebuilt. And the in built optimization kicks in every 3 days. After
that defrag again. If the system is still slow after some days try some
clean boot troubleshooting to see what may be hanging up on startup. A
program may need to be uninstalled / reinstalled:

How to troubleshoot by using the System Configuration utility in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=310560

How to perform a clean boot in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=310353

 

[Alex Nichol]

I installed SP2 the other night. I prepped my computer as best I could (ran
the Spyware program, etc). Now my computer takes a long time to boot up, and
seems to run slower overall. The family is complaining. It is a Dell
Dimension 2400, Pentium IV at 2.4Ghz with 512K RAM. I have Norton Internet
Security, so I have turned off the Windows firewall.

Installing SP2 leaves files scattered around and undoes all the
optimisations that have gone on - it accordingly deletes the PreFetch
folder, and that has to be rebuilt. Defrag the system, and then reboot
two or three times during the next week, so that data on boot
accumulates in PreFetch along with that on programs you load, and the
every-three day optimisation will start to improves things pretty soon

NIS has much bigger overheads than the Windows firewall and may be
contributing

 

[Guest]

Thanks, everyone, I will try these suggestions when I get home tonight.
Kailua Al