XP boot delay - WIA hangs on starting

[David Harper]

I suddenly started experiencing a long delay when I boot my Win XP Pro (SP2)
machine . It is a Dell 3.0 Gig cpu, 1 Gig memory machine.

For the past year, up until two days ago, it booted in about 1.5 minutes.
But the next and subsequent boots, it gets as far as showing the wallpaper
then hangs there for about 4 minutes. At this point there is nothing on the
screen except the wallpaper. At the end of the 4 minutes the taskbar and
desktop icons appear and the boot process continues normally. Once it has
completely booted everything appears to work normally.

I examined the Event Log and found only one oddity. Early in the boot
process --about the time the wallpaper appears -- the log records this: "The
Windows Image Acquisition (WIA) service hung on starting." 4 minutes later
the Event Log reports that the WIA service entered the running state.

The only recent system modifying events that I can recall are: 1) I
installed the latest JAVA runtime (JRE) from Sun. 2) Symantec's LiveUpdate
installed an updated LiveUpdate program. I have Symantec's WinFax Pro and
Norton Utilities, but not any of their anti-virus or firewall stuff.

I have seen references where there were problems with WIA and certain
scanner and printer drivers. However, my scanner and printer work fine
after the computer finally boots. Aslo, I have not updated any of their
drivers.

Does anyone have a suggestions how I might solve my slow boot problem?

- David Harper

 

[Wesley Vogel]

Stop and disable the WIA service in Services.msc.

Set the WIA service back to Automatic or Manual and start it before you use
your scanner.

Downside is you will have a boatload of Event Source: DCOM Event ID: 10005
errors in the Event Viewer.

And I mean a boatload.

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In

 

[David Harper]

Stop and disable the WIA service in Services.msc.

Set the WIA service back to Automatic or Manual and start it before you
use
your scanner.

Downside is you will have a boatload of Event Source: DCOM Event ID:
10005
errors in the Event Viewer.

And I mean a boatload.

Thanks for your reply. As I mentioned in my original post I am having no
problems with my scanner or printer. My only problem is the long boot time.
The Event Log shows that the WIA service eventually starts. This occurs
about 4 minutes after the event message that says it hug on starting.

I am still trying to solve this problem.

- David Harper

 

[Wesley Vogel]

Have fun solving it.

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In

 

[David Harper]

Set WIA to manual in the administrator services... and all will be well

My Windows Image Acquisition (WIA) was set to "Automatic". I changed it to
"Manual" and rebooted. Still got the 4 minute delay, but this time WIA did
not show up in the Event Log with an error.

However.... I frequently use Internet Explorer's Address History down arrow
to go to recently visited sites. The history list of URLs now take over 2
minutes to drop down. This only happens the first time I try it. Subsequent
times I try it, either in the same browser window, or a different one, it
drops downs instantly, as usual.

This was the result of changing WIA from "Automatic". To "Manual"! Changing
it back to "Automatic" fixed the 2 minute delay in dropping down Explorer's
Address History. How bizarre.

I still have a 4 minute boot.

- David