Start up problem

I use Windows XP SP2,512memory, installed Avast home edition along with zone alarm
I have a little dissatisfaction with the start up speed of this program.
When the system starts up, It seems that the icon on the system tray keeps on rotating for a long time and the zone alarm icon is then available,then the hard disk stops. This period is too long, compared to McAfee and Norton.
Should the reason be zone alarm or avast itself.

You could do a simple test, completely disable ZA at startup ensure any ZA services are also disabled and reboot. Open the Standard Shield detailed view and check the total scanned files count.

Enable ZA again, reboot and check it again, this will give you an idea of how much ZA affects startup.

For me my firewall Outpost accesses 450-500 files which slowed my boot considerably.

You should also check what programs start on boot and do they actually need to, rather don’t start them until they are needed, you may find several that don’t need to run on startup.

Realy agree…
As posted a lot of time here, try Startup Delayer to control the windows startup (Windows 98\Me\2k\XP). You can set some applications to start very after the boot (logon) itself. :wink:
You can test NetRun, a small tool that detects if you’re online and start some applications you define. You can control the order, the time for loading, etc.
When you get off-line, you can do the same, setting the applications to run. It’s a must have (http://www.czarsoft.com/).