Since a few days ago I have a long delay during Win98SE startup (right at the beginning). BOOTLOG.TXT shows 0x190 time units between the stuff executed in AUTOEXEC.BAT and "Loading Vxd = VMM".

Removing CONFIG.SYS and cleaning up AUTOEXEC.BAT didn't help. I also removed some non-present devices in safe mode just in case, to no avail.

There's been no hardware changes, nor real software changes I can think of.

Any idea what might be the cause?

Initially there was also a second delay near the end of startup, after the logo screen is dismissed. BOOTLOG says it was 0x25B time units between "Enumerated Standard Floppy Disk Controller" and "Loading PNP drivers of Realtek RTL8139...". Not sure if it means the floppy, the NIC, or potentially something else. It's gone now, though. (Relevant changes may or may not have been: disabling and re-enabling the floppy controller, the NIC, removing random UNC paths from the registry, unchecking the checkbox that allows the OS to turn off the NIC to save power.)

Maybe defragmenting the hard drive helps? The only thing I know of that would slow down start-up time is if the NIC can't get an IP (if it's not configured with a fixed one).

That's smartdrv.exe that can cause this. Try to remove it from \windows, however, backup it first!

Thanks for the suggestions. The problem is none of the above.

Fragmentation does not cause delays of many seconds (with no HDD activity) during startup.

The NIC has a static IP (and it's most likely too early in the boot process to be related).

SMARTDRV.EXE loads after the long delay. I tried disabling it anyway, but it didn't help. (Why would SMARTDRV cause delays actually?)

And it's gone just as abruptly as it came. A mystery.

That's fine.

Ok, now me:

Does anyone knows why I have the hourglass on my cursor (process going on) when the desktop is there and ready?
The hourglass stays for about 30 seconds...

It doesn't prevent my to open programs, but while it's there it's quiet slow.

You'd be better off checking the processes that run at startup, in some way. Put a shortcut to WinTop, Codestuff Starter or other similar tool in the Startup folder or just open it manually as soon as you get the chance after boot, see if there's something there that shouldn't be.
Could be some software performing auto-update.

Also run some malware scan as it may be an internet-dependant process that's waiting for the NIC to be initialized.

[EDIT]
Oh and now that I recall, some options when enabled in TweakUI could cause such behavior. Especially those that clean traces at startup, in the Paranoia tab.

This post has been edited by Drugwash: Jul 13 2008, 11:12 PM