yeah the reason why your windows is starting up that long is definitely due to spyware. We have a windows desktop in the house, a p3 only about 2 years old, and it was infested with spyware before I left for college. Took forever to start up. When I came home for winter break I reinstall windows xp and spyware is all gone. Its good as new and takes 45 seconds to start up. (I use it sometimes at home even though I have the powerbook, mainly to play partypoker). Anyway my pb takes like 45 seconds to start up and then its loaded. I know what you mean about the extra processes once your desktop loads. But windows xp should really not take more than 90 seconds before you can do things unless you are infested with spyware. Hence another reason to switch