New Vista Install

whats your deff. of slow?
How long does the boot up process take?
if you copy this code into notepad and save it as a .vbs it will tell you how long your boot up time is (i didn't write this, just found it elsewhere)(it will restart your pc):

Option Explicit
On Error Resume Next
Dim Wsh, Time1, Time2, Result, PathFile, MsgResult, MsgA, AppName, KeyA, KeyB, TimeDiff
MsgA = "Please close all running applications and click on OK."
KeyA = "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\RestartTime\"
KeyB = "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\RestartTime"
AppName = "ReBoot-Time"
Set Wsh = CreateObject("WScript.Shell" )
PathFile = """" & WScript.ScriptFullName & """"
Result = wsh.RegRead(KeyA & "Times" )
if Result = "" then
MsgResult = Msgbox (MsgA, vbOKCancel, AppName)
If MsgResult = vbcancel then WScript.Quit
Wsh.RegWrite KeyA & "Times", left(Time,8), "REG_SZ"
Wsh.RegWrite KeyB, PathFile, "REG_SZ"
Wsh.Run "cmd /c Shutdown -r -t 00", false, 0
else
Wsh.RegDelete KeyA & "Times"
Wsh.RegDelete KeyA
Wsh.RegDelete KeyB
TimeDiff = DateDiff("s",Result,left(Time,8))
MsgBox "Your computer reboots in " & TimeDiff & " seconds", VbInformation, AppName
end if
wscript.Quit

lastly, when u install an OS, you should really reformat your harddrive so there are no old folders on it form a previous install. this way there are no chance of old or conflicting windows folders

it is a new install but on an old CPU. Hardware is all fine in the device manager, although Vista is telling me I have a floppy disk drive. So how do I reformat the HDD?

Loads times are: 30 seconds on load screen with the green bar, then 20 seconds of black (this could be the stall you were talking about Lee-m) then it takes about 1m 30 secs - 2mins to go from the welcome screen to loading a Browser, with the desktop loading very slowly.

When I last installed Vista, this stuff was almost instant.

How would network problems effect startup?

Tried msconfig, that didn't change anything, infact it may have made it worse. Boot up is not about 5 mins from welcome screen to desktop, with a blank screen inbetween. Is it possible that there is something wrong with the HDD. Maybe its not getting enough power or something?

Also, when I installed Vista surely I reformatted the Hard Drive at the same time? Cant remember it giving me an option to do anything else.

Since you have a windows.old folder you probably did not re-partition and reformat, unless Vista moved your old files over to another partition and I don't think it will even do that.

I would try again and this time when to get to the drive selection screen DELETE the old partition first.

I don't know if this will help but it might. You should also make the initial install as simple as possible and unhook any external USB drives and the like.

the vista install manager gives you the option to delete and rezise partitions. If you just delete it and tell it to install, it just creates a new one and formats it for you.