Long Startup Time

[FM-Brian]

I am having a very strange problem with one computer and was hoping to get some ideas or advice before I resort to reformatting the hard drive. I am running Windows XP, and Filemaker 8.5 Advanced. When I start Filemaker, it takes 4-7 minutes before I see the splash screen and the File Open dialog. If I immediately quit Filemaker, it will restart in about 3 seconds. I have listed below things that I have checked and done to resolve this issue but in the end, I cannot get the first startup to occur in less than 4 minutes. Any ideas?

Here is what I have tried, and what I know:

1. It started happening with FMP 7, and has stayed as I upgraded to 8 and 8.5

2. I removed all items from the startup folders (personal and all users), and disabled many of the startup items in msconfig

3. I have removed all versions of FMP and removed registry entries, then reloaded FMP8.5

4. Except for this startup issue, the computer works normally

5. Other computers do not experience the same startup delay

6. I have watched the FMP process in task manager and do not see much CPU activity. There are not other processes taking up the CPU time.

7. I have used filemon to watch the file access activity, and do not see anything unusual such as filemaker not finding files.

Brian

[Mike D.]

Brian,

I have seen something similar to this on a HP laptop running XP Home Edition. If I was not connected to the network, but my network connections in the Control Panel were enabled, FM was extremely slow to start up. If I disabled the network connections, FM started up normally.

The fix for me was to disable the connections before starting up FileMaker when not hooked up to the network.

BTW - this problem does not occur on a Dell laptop with XP Professional.

HTH, Mike

[FM-Brian]

Thanks for the idea Mike. I tried disabling my network connection, but did not see any change in the startup speed.

I am running Windows XP Pro on a Dell Optiplex GX280

Brian

[Mike D.]

Brian,

I seem to remember that corrupted font(s) could cause a slow-down. That was quite a while ago and I think it only affected Macs, not PCs. Just a thought...

Mike