Thanks Michael. MoI starts in about 5 seconds on any other pc I have used too. Not this one though... I totally removed AVG virus and MoI's still slow. Reinstalled MoI and its still slow (although it wasnt a totally clean reinstall because the ini and keys were still there). Booted in safe mode and its still slow. Tried 'Last know good setup' or whatever its called, still slow. I dont really know when this started (pc is only a month old), so it's hard to say WTH i did, or what windows did that i am not aware of. oh well, just have to leave MoI open all the time, I guess. but then again, the network license checker will kick me off the netbook when i use MoI on that too.

is there any way to log the startup or find out whats going on during the startup? the hourglass (or current spinning thing version of it) goes away after about 5 seconds and then just NOTHING until MoI pops up.