The Hour Glass conundrum - and suggestions?

[Dr. Mac]

Dear Members

Hello and greetings.

Some time ago - soemwhere on this forum - I saw a post which described the problem below. But I can't for the life of me find it again.

The "Problem"

NOT anything major, but would like to know what to do.

When you start up Win98se, as the desktop appears, an hour-glass appears next to the mouse pointer (to show programs etc are still loading) After a short time, the hour-glass goes away.

BUT THEN ... a second or two later it appears again !!!

NOW ... the post I once saw here spoke about this and said it was caused by a totally unnecessary program doing it's thing (it might have been some sort of Windows program, or a Windows file, like wmiexe.exe ....)

Well, I do remember it was definitely SOMETHING that was causing this - and it often happens when you open Internet Explorer, or Word, or do many other things on the PC. And that "something" is totally unnecessary to be running.

Does anybody know what I'm talking about when I speak about that hour-glass popping up so much?

And more important, does anyone know WHAT that totally unnecessary program or file is that is causing the hour-glass to appear so often, and how to stop it?

Thank folks. Always a good thing to come here and ask you experienced experts.

Best wishes,

Dr. Mac

Edited February 17, 2007 by Dr. Mac

[glocK_94]

Hi Dr. Mac.

Usually updating windows (SP2, autopatcher...) helps with this kind of problem.

And then, well I guess it depends of what you install but for an out of the box 98...

This programs tend to act once windows is started so they could be the reason of the hour glass:

- systray.exe -> not stricltly needed (though not useless)

- mstask.exe -> something to be disabled if you don't use scheduled tasks

- taskmon.exe -> logs the programs you use to increase defrag efficiency (personnaly, I see it as a privacy vulnerability that slow things down and disable it)

For better investingations, get a logger that will tape every program action while windows starts.

Hope this helps!

[ldb]

Go to the start button and select run. In the box type in msconfig. Next go to the startup tab and click on it. In there you will find everything that is checked will load up when windows starts. You can begin by unchecking un-needed items. The only one usually needed is system tray (systray.exe). If you do not understand these, help can be found here:

http://www.windowsstartup.com/wso/browse.php

or post your startup list.

[Dr. Mac]

Thanks for the replies folks.

I will certainly take a look at everything suggested here.

Much appreciated.

Dr. Mac

[Rick Chauvin]

[....]

Dear Members

When you start up Win98se, as the desktop appears, an hour-glass appears next to the mouse pointer (to show programs etc are still loading) After a short time, the hour-glass goes away.

BUT THEN ... a second or two later it appears again !!!

Dr. Mac

[....]

That is absolutely normal. I've probably got one of the leanest/fastest W98SE machines there is, and yes when it boots up the hour glass is there for maybe 4 seconds as things finish loading and then it disappears - and yes a seconds later it appears again for maybe 1 sec again, and then is gone for good.. This is within normal operation as necessary programs load. If it's taking to much more time than this then as the others have mentioned do some maintenance but only of the appropriate items.. The fact that the hourglass comes up for the 2nd time for a second though, is normal.

Rick

[MDGx]

Try this:

1. Download + install Startup CPL:

http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml

2. Open Startup control panel applet from your Control Panel.

3. Go to "HKLM / Run" tab.

4. Disable [do not delete so you can re-enable later if needed] mstask.exe or sage.exe or sysagent.exe entry/entries.

5. Reboot.

If you still see that delay, perform same steps above and disable the "scanregw.exe /autorun" entry.

Beware that "scanregw.exe /autorun" checks the registry for errors, restores it if deffective, and backs up the good registry files every time your computer loads Windows.

HTH

[Dr. Mac]

Thanks so much guys.

You are the BEST - no wonder us newbies enjoy coming here and learning from you!

Best wishes,

Dr. Mac

[eidenk]

If you still see that delay, perform same steps above and disable the "scanregw.exe /autorun" entry.

Beware that "scanregw.exe /autorun" checks the registry for errors, restores it if deffective, and backs up the good registry files every time your computer loads Windows.

It also normally optimizes the registry files, it compresses them if there is more 500kb of empty space in them and provided they are smaller than 8MB. And it does not backup the registry at each reboot btw. Only once per day max. I would not recommend disabling it.

[MDGx]

Thanks for noticing.

You're right, "scanregw /autorun" backs up + optimizes the registry only upon the 1st boot of each new day.

[Drugwash]

I think CodeStuff Starter is a bit more advanced and shows tasks that Mike Lin's StartupCPL sometimes misses.