Windows 7: Suddenly Slow Start-up

Installed Windows 7 about 6 months ago.. loving it! Did a complete reformat & only loaded Windows 7 Ultimate, Office 2007 & Norton 360. Start-up was super fast, everything running great.

For the past week, she's suddenly taking forever to start-up. Holds at the 'Starting Windows' screen for 5-7 mins! And when it finally does load, I open IE and that takes another 1-2 mins to fully open. Ran update then complete deep Norton scan & it found nothing. Also, nothing in my 'Startup' under Programs.

Is this a registry problem? Worse? Thanks...


PS- Dell Dimension E520, Intel Core2 6300 1.86GHz, 4GB RAM

One issue is Norton. Its large, bulky and causes more issues than it fixes.

Thing is, I've been running Norton for 6 months no problems. All I really do on this computer is IE & Office.

What do you suggest to replace it?

I have grown fond of Microsoft Security essentials.(FREE) and Malwarebytes(free). be sure to runt he norton cleanup tool (Download and run the Norton Removal Tool to uninstall your Norton product | Norton Support).