[Virtualacorn-list] Slow VA startup

[T.O.M.S.]

Hi Chris

On Mon Apr 30 at 18:18 Chris Newman cvjazz at waitrose.com sayeth:

> My Virtual Acorn SA 4.02 on my Windows XP laptop seems
> suddenly to take ages to boot up.

> I changed from Avira anti-virus to Avast.

The sequence of start-up events looks OK. Slow start-up does very 
occasionally happen, for no apparent reason, but nowhere near as 
slowly as that. Without further info, this triggers lots of 
possibilities. But here's a few thoughts for starters:

-  What is the processor and clock speed on your laptop?

-  Did the problem start happening immediately after you changed to 
Avast?

-  What happens once you get to the desktop - is everything OK or is 
it running in slo-mo?

-  Are the symptoms repeatable if you close down and re-start 
VirtualRPC?  And are they repeatable if you close down and re-start 
Windows?

-  Before you start VirtualRPC, is Windows doing anything else that 
might be slowing VRPC start-up? For example, is the hard-disc activity 
LED on permanently or for much of the time?

-  If it is, press <Ctrl-Alt-Del>, select the Processes tab and see 
what the bottom line  - 'System Idle Process' - is saying. If it's 
much less than 98%-ish, look further up to see what else is giving 
more than a couple of %. In particular, what is Avast doing? Is it 
doing an anti-virus check for instance?

-  If you suspect Avast, switch off or disconnect your modem, re-start 
Windows, Quit Avast, then try to start VirtualRPC. Any better?

-  If you run right out of ideas, I would try a System Restore, going 
back to immediately before you installed Avast. (It's probably best to 
keep the modem switched off until your anti-virus prog. is up and 
running again.)

HTH for now. Please report back on the above and other people might 
have better ideas.

Mike Nicholl
pp T.O.M.S.