Hi,
I currently am running windows XP. For the past few months I had been experiencing extremely slow loading times to LOAD windows (USUALLY 30 minutes out of hibernation). I downloaded Microsoft Bootvis and might have altered something in msconfig. I didn't think I made any changes to my computer, but the next time I started it up it started up in what looked to be windows 98' the bottom task bar styling, etc., I cannot add/remove programs and my Norton Anti-Virus is gets errors trying to update. I don't see safe mode anywhere on the taskbar or screen corners and under misconfig the safe mode box is not checked. Also I have no audio ANYMORE and it says I have no audio driver installed.

Does anyone have any idea what is going on? Norton anti-virus says Auto-Protect experienced an unexpected error. Ox800705b4Do you have Windows XP CD, or Recovery CD? It may be your best option.No, I don't know what's going on? It doesn't sound like you're in Safe Mode.

You never explicitly said... Are you able to boot up in Safe Mode?

Unplug from internet (as your anti-malware software won't automatically load to protect you under Safe Mode). At system startup, tap the F8 KEY about once per second until the Windows Advanced Options Menu comes up. Select Safe Mode. Is your system load time normal under this mode? How does it run under this mode with minimum driver support and no startup programs loaded?

Sounds like a typical case of malware/adware/virusses.

A month ago my XP laptop also took ages to start up.
After running Ad Aware, spy-bot and AVG it still was too slow.

There was a nasty virus that I couldn't get rid of.
My solution was to DUST of the XP cd (official), format c: and re install everything.
That did the trick.

I hope for you that your adware/spyware removal and virus scanner will be able to remove it!