Multiple Problems with XP

[gapboy9m]

i have incountered many problems recently, and i have no idea if they are related

1. when i bootup, some of my startup programs load right away, (such as kazaa, aim, norton (norton boots disabled, but later enables when the rest of my apps load) ) however, my wireless card util, xp's internet util, xp's safely remove hardware app, and my web cam app dont load for another 5 minutes, and its not like my computer is processing or anything (the hard drive isnt spinning)(but it does run slow for those 5 minutes)........(also when i right click and my mouse passes by "Send to..".. it takes like 5 min to load those options)

2. when i click "my computer", my computer takes 10 minutes to show the drives to the screen.. instead for 10 minutes i get an hour glass and a white "my computer" folder

3. when i first installed SP2 my wireless card worked fine using SP2's built in networking util.. however i ended up uninstalling and then reinstalling SP2. now i have to use the util that came with the card instead of XP's util.. without the card's util, XP wont let me connect to my network (it sees it, and i configured i right (i reinstalled the card's util.. but before i did that, XP's util wouldnt even see my network))

4. i cant get the common tasks in my folder view.. i went to tools --> folder options -->general... but the "show common tasks in folders" is grayed out

5. internet explorer takes 5 minutes to load ever since i installed SP2


ANY HELP ANYONE CAN PROVIDE THAT HELPS ME SOLVE ANY OF THESE PROBLEMS WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED!!!!

i have tried everything i know how to do... i tried norton's windoctor, spybot search distroy, lavasoft's ad-aware, CleanUp!, PCBugDoctor, Moosoft's The Cleaner, Regclean, and RegSeeker... i have also tried disabling some startup programs

PLEASE I AM BEGGING U!!!!
my next step is to reformat, but i have 40 gigs worth of programs installed and i would kill myself trying to install them all again..

whatever help you can provide would be GREAT!!!

[neil121183]

The answer to question 4.

To get comman tasks, right click on 'my computer'.
Click properties, click advanced, click the performance settings.
Scroll down to the bottom and select 'Use common tasks in folders'.

[gapboy9m]

its already selected...

[vidster]

Check Task manager to see what is hogging all your system resources: Ctrl+Alt+Del.
I have a feeling it could be Norton. Next try doing a selective startup: Start/Run/ Type: msconfig/ Uncheck ALL the programs in your startup list/Reboot. If that has worked, then you need to go back to msconfig and re-check ONE box at a time (rebooting in between) until you find the program that is causing the problem.