Fixing Slow Internet Connectivity After Windows Updates

When I installed IE 10 on my Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x64 PC, something caused all web browsers (IE, FireFox, etc.) to take a ridiculous amount of time to start-up and make the first connection to the Internet. I rolled-back the IE 10 install back to IE 9 and enjoyed normal start-up speeds for quite a while... until about 2 weeks ago. A ton of Windows Updates downloaded and installed and apparently one of them is now causing any Internet related application to take forever to start-up... just like installing IE 10 did.

I tried doing a system restore to a point prior to the Windows Updates, but that caused a bunch of issues because I had uninstalled some software after the restore point was created. Figuring I'll eventually have to get the Windows Update that slows down my machine, I just bit-the-bullet and installed IE 10... and the slow problem persists.

Is there any way I can figure-out what is causing all web browsers to start-up so slowly all of the sudden? I don't see any errors in the event log. I sure hope this isn't just Microsoft's way of trying to push me to Windows 8

What I'm seeing is this...

- Click the IE icon to open the web browser
- Web browser opens but is blank
- I wait... and wait... and wait...
- Finally, IE opens the default web page (Outlook.com in my case)

Following the initial start, things are *relatively* fast, although still not as fast as prior to the mysterious evil Windows Update that slowed everything down.

I just figured-out the issue... and I feel dumb.

Quite by accident, I looked at IE's LAN settings (Tools -> Internet Options -> Connections -> LAN Settings). Instead of the "Automatically detect settings" checkbox being checked, the "Use automatic configuration script" checkbox was checked with an Address to my work's proxy server for LAN settings. I can only guess this got changed when I installed the Cisco VPN software on my machine many months ago.

After checking the "Automatically detect settings" and unchecking the "Use automatic configuration script" checkbox, even IE 10 is now as fast as it should be.

Yeah me.

Hi, I seem to have a problem with two programmes when I am waiting for my homepage to load,
the two programmes show on the taskbar at the bottom of my page. the are Skype & Magnifier once the load the homepage comes up no problem. Is there any way I can stop these two programmes loading at start up. Thank's Megroy.