Windows Slowing Painfully

[SnwDvl]

I am running WinXP on a 2 year old Toshiba laptop, and, as of about 2 weeks ago, when I launch a program, ANY program, it may start right up or it may take as long as 30 minutes to start. I have noted that Internet Explorer, Music Match, and most any game I attempt to run take an especially long time to load, while Opera, most any video file, and a few other programs start right up, although, Opera is prone to hang for extended periods.
I have tried running Ad-Aware, Spy-Bot, Zone Alarm Pro and the system restore feature within Windows itself. I am just about at my wits' end with this problem, so any help anyone might be able to offer will be greatly appreciated.

 

[AWS]

Sounds like you need to defrag the disks. Also check for not needed services and eliminate them.

 

[SnwDvl]

Thanks for the reply, Mr Swarz. I was using DisKeeper Pro, but no matter how many times I tried to set the thing to a 'custom' schedule, it just continued to run whenever it took a notion... so I killed it! Uninstalled it, really. Your tip does make sense, however, because I don't think I've let the system defrag run at all since I removed DK. I'll try it & report back.

 

[SnwDvl]

I went through the defrag, but I can't tell any difference in the performance from before. When I started the defrag the analyzer said it was only 6% fragmented, anyway.