Laptop Problem

[TEAK36]

I recently purchased a new laptop,and up until this weekend it was working fine.Now it takes 10 minutes to boot up,and none of the programs are responding when I click on the icon.When I look at the task manager,the general tab shows the task manager as the only program running,but in the processes tab,it shows all of the programs that I have tried (but failed) to open.I then have to use the end now button in task manager to close all of these programs before I can log off.Have I got a virus? I use Windows XP and have the built in Firewall enabled.I also use Norton Anti Virus 2003.

[SoupNazi]

The most likely reason is that you have installed a lot of programs or have accumulated many files. This can often 'scramble' your hard-drive making it slow to react, peform operations (if at all) and greatly reduce it's performance. So I suggest you have a major clean-up of unecessary files and programs and then use the DEFRAGMENT tool located in your main disk properties. HINT: Be weary of what you install. To be extremely careful, only install programs which supply an un-install fuction.