After the Windows XP desktop has loaded and the avast (v4.6 Home) icon starts spinning in the task bar, I’m able to use stuff from the desktop almost immediately. The avast icon stops spinning, everything’s fine but then, after a few seconds, the avast icon starts spinning again - there’s hard disk activity - and the desktop freezes for about 10 seconds. During this time I can move the cursor but nothing works. Not a disaster but annoying. It’s only started to happen recently.
I’ve undone any major changes I’ve done recently and uninstalled anything recent I thought might be causing the problem - like Microsoft Anti-Spyware I also checked out the event viewer but nothing untoward is stated. I also reinstalled my DSL driver (which caused NAV to load slowly at bootup in the past) and my graphics card drivers. But it persists. The system runs fine after this pause at startup.
One thing I have noticed - no idea if it’s relevant and, again, it doesn’t affect the system in any way - is an occasional error message just as Windows closes down. It’s not up long enough to read more than: “cannot read to memory” or similar.
Any help gratefully received.