Windows Installer at start-up

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Morning all,

Every time I start up my (partners) laptop, I get a windows installer pop-up dialogue that states ‘preparing to install’. There is a ‘time bar’ that fills, and then the dialogue disappears within a minute or so. To be honest, the laptop is in pretty poor condition at the moment, slow startup etc etc that I am trying to improve. Any ideas as to what this installer is doing, and how I get rid??

Thanks

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Which version of Windows? XP, 2003, Vista, …
Does the message say what it’s preparing to install? Windows, Office, something else?

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Hi Hans,

It’s windows XP SP2. No, it does not say, and I have absolutely no idea what it is attempting to install? It has been like that for quite some time.

Ps… I just installed and run Ad-Aware which on a quick scan removed 2600 infections, about 30 of which were critical!! Then on a Full scan, removed another 550 infections, ALL of which were critical!!

My other half is a fan of ‘Kazza’ which I sacked years ago, IMO the root of all evil!!

Added later: Something else that I have noticed, is that the windows start-up sound kicks in considerably later that windows starts up. The desktop loads, then the start-up sound kicks in, then the desktop (kind of) re-loads / refreshes? Quite bizarre, in comparisson to other machines that I use!!

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You should probably do some basic system maintenance, as it sounds like this machine has been severely neglected over the years.

First, run the Disk Cleanup utility. Start>All Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Disk Cleanup Select the C drive and then check every box except the one for Compress All Files (I think that’s the title, it’s been so long since I’ve seen it) and click OK. This may take awhile (10-15 min) if it hasn’t been done in a long time.

Second, defrag the hard drive. This could take an hour or more if it hasn’t been done in a while, but is worth the time. Start>All Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Disk Defragmenter.

After you’ve done both of these basic maintenance tasks, come back and let us know how much this has helped, if at all, and we’ll look into some protection and removal software for some of those other issues that may be going on in the background. HTH

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Thanks Doc, work in progress…..

I shall (more than likely) return…

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Disc Defrag requires 15% free disc space, there is only 6% currently available. I will wait for tother half to move some files off and then revisit……

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Just the fact that there is only 6% free space on the drive will cause problematic behavior. You either need some form of external storage or should consider removing some of the unnecessary programs or deleting unnecessary data.

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