I was on a laptop running XP, dialup, so I could not go to a computer and check.

That kind of unusual...

Hope that worked for you. Otherwise I might have mentioned that you need to download and run the free "adware SE Personal"

Have you defragged the hard drive lately?

Do you run Norton or something else that has a Registry Checked, optimizer and defragmenter?

Something as common as having Microsoft Office in the memory will take away from system resources.

In other words, if you don't need it, the software should be loading, until you do need it. Most of that quick startup stuff is a resource hog.

The one thing you can add to a system to make it work faster and better, is more memory. Before you slap in 1 gigabyte chips, check to see what the maximum is for your computer. Running Windows 98, you can't go past 512 MB, and older systems are even less.

If you have less than 128 mb, you might find the computer slowing down more and more as upgrades and newer software demand more system resources.