I am trying to fix this problem in my daughter’s computer. As stated above, after logging in, it takes about 1 minute and 10 secs for avast icon to starts turning. During this time, all applications are operable but I just can’t access internet. Once the avast icon is turning, everything works just fine. I have run hijackthis, startupList, spybot_Search & Destroy, scan for virus, clean up Window Local Temp Dir, and did not see any problem. The computer is a P4, WinXP SP2 with 1GB of DRAM, on USB wireless. It is fixed port so ip address should not be a problem and I have checked that to make sure ip address is valid in the network. All other computers at home have no such problem ie. avast coming up within 15 secs but THIS ONE takes more than one minute to do so. I have uninstalled avast and indeed, internet access is quick right after logging in but reinstall avast will reinstall problem. Any suggestion to figure out what cause it?
The only thing I can think of is to use startup delayer as it may be that you have too many start up programmes with avast starting last
I suggest you read this thread - http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=14062.0 - it is my experience where I believed it was avast being excessive in its startup scan. However after exhaustive analysis it turned out to be my firewall that was accessing 450-500 files or multiple accesses to files.
I now start my firewall manually after windows boot.
I use to have the same problem, do you have a firewall installed? For me, once uninstalling zone alarm, Avast! loaded more quickly.
StainD: I use standard WinXP firewall.
DavidR: Thanks for the thread pointer. I disable WinXP firewall, the problem remains. Just to clarify my above post, avast did not start spinning until 1 min 10 sec after the desktop appeared following log-in. It’s not the scanning problem (mine is around 303 files) but the excessive delay of avast to become active. Is there a way to list active processes after log-in to show when avast becomes active and who are in front of him?
I use filemon at start up to see what’s going on and stop capture when I see avast starts spinning. It took a full 1 min from filemon starting point to avast icon spinning. svchost starts 1 second before that. I didn’t see anything weird in that list except csrss.exe have a bunch of buffer overflow when accessing c:\Windows\WinSxS\Manifest. Don’t know if these info helps at all.
Maybe is the time to test Startup Delayer.
It’s the only freeware I’ve found that controls the windows startup (Windows 98\Me\2k\XP) that does not follow a strict order.
You can set some applications to start very after the boot (logon) itself. 
Perhaps it is time to use startup delayer, but what do you delay if you don’t know the program that is causing the delay?
Unless there is a way to advance avast in the process?
Yeah, I know this… but, generally, the problem is on firewall loading or Security Center files loading…
But the problem could be on thirdy parties interacting each other and not directly related to avast…
Anything is possible on Windows logging on… 
The program could give some order and then help.
Other possibilty is using BootVis to ‘defrag’ the boot files, etc.
I think I found the solution to my problem. This computer has an onboard Intel network adapter and I thought I had disable it but somehow, for some reasons it was enable again. Disable the darn thing and avast comes up as quick as it should be.
The reason that I didn’t give it up because with so many talented people around here, me too 
of course, and we still couldn’t find the problem then it must be that we are chasing the wrong horse. And exactly, it’s so. Just a reminder to people bitching that others are incompetent that fixing computer problem long distance with incomplete information is like going to the moon with a Boeing 747. We probably go right back where we start.
I’m glad that you stuck with it and more so that you reported back to us what the problem and resolution was. I’m sure this may help others in the future.