XP hangs during boot at 'windows is starting up' screen

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support (More info?)

I tried to speed up my windows boot process. for this i downloaded Microsoft
BootVis. it told me that my boot process takes 99 seconds and login time is
22 seconds additional. I asked it to optimize it... it displayed the messages
that reorginizing the files while optimizing and after that i have started
getting this problem.
Problem:
if i remove the network cable then the chance that the system will boot is
50%. else system hangs on the login screen with all the user names but you
can't click on any one of it. or u can say mouse can move around but the
windows doesn't catch any click... it doesn't shows the number of unread
emails under the login name... so i think windows get hang... but i m unable
to justify why the mouse still moves.
if i donot remove the network cable then the system will hang during the
boot with the screen showing message 'windows is starting up'.. it sometimes
reboot at this stage too.. or it can reach login screen with the same
symptoms that the name are displayed but you can't click and enter into the
windows.

i removed the Microsoft BootVis and then i tried to use restore point to
restore the system to an earlier date... but it failed..

Thanks