Thank you all for your excellent suggestions.  You're all in the right
area.

The first thing I did was to look at the Admin Tools: Event Viewer
Aplications, Security are all information, but in Systems, every boot
I get these two errors:

1) The IPv6 Helper Service service hung on starting.
2) The following boot-start or system-start driver(s) failed to load:
aic78xx

Don't know what these two do.  Any ideas?

The next thing I did was to shut off that pesky UPnP

I went to the
My Computer right click
Manage
 Services and Applications
  Services
    SSDP Discovery Service right click Properties/disable

then I rebooted to see what happens.
Something did change, but instead of an hour glass over the start, all
seemed dead, nothing would work for about 2 minutes.  While waiting, I
checked the ctrlaltdel to find that one of the four svchost.exe was
hogging the CPU for 99+ ??, so I end task.  Instantly I could open
applications and START and WinXP was up and running, but in the Event
Viewer were now...
1) The IPv6 Helper Service service hung on starting.
2) The following boot-start or system-start driver(s) failed to load:
aic78xx
3) The DNS Client service terminated unexpectedly.  It has done this 1
time(s).

With the entry time stamp of 3) happening exactly matching when I shut
off the 'hogging' svchost.exe

I then went to RUN
ipconfig /flushdns
which caused the HD to do a lot of accessing

However, checking again I found all four svchost.exe's were back
running, but none hogging CPU.

Before I logged onto the net to bring everyone up to date, I checked
the SSDP Discovery Service and found it ON ?!
Don't know why it's so hard to kill that thing.
Turned it off, then dialed IP and went right to the welcome screen for
the first time ever!

Seems like problem starts with bad driver, or nonexistent driver,
followed by that SSD and UPnP search

Robert

Wow!

I tried a power on boot and let the program go to completion.

Task Manager identified 5 versions of svchost.exe running:

svchost.exe SYSTEM
svchost.exe NETWORK SERVICE
svchost.exe SYSTEM
svchost.exe NETWORK SERVICE
svchost.exe LOCAL SERVICE

NOTE: any application was 'doggy', so then I went to the right click
My Computer/Manage/Services/ to disable SSD Discovery to stop UPnP,
that helped speed up things a bit

Then tried to connect to my ISP:
IE6 dialed instantly
but the handshake took over 7 minutes [normally 10-20 seconds], I let
it run.until said connected
the welcome screen never came up even after waiting another 8 minutes
[normally as fast as dial up download 1 to 2 sec]

This didn't seem right, so checked Manage/Services again and found SSD
Discovery had started again!  Stopped it.
then,
 RUN
 ipconfig /flushdns

but after that, I couldn't get anything to work right.  No Manage/  I
could not even get the Task Manager to come up.  Just ctrl-alt-del,
hour glass, then back to normal; never could get Task Manager, or
Manage/Services running again?

Ok, rebooted and did the following steps of protocol, which works
everytime:
Boot up
just as Windows Desktop fills in, but hour glass on START
ctrl-alt-del to start Task Manager and find the svchost.exe that is
hogging the CPU's time, end task
instantly I can start any application
START and right click My Computer
Manage/Services/ stop SSD Discovery
RUN
ipconfig /flushdns

and WinXP is suddenly very fast *and* I can connect to the internet

If I don't run that ipconfig /flushdns, I can't connect to the
internet, don't know why, just doesn't work.

When I try to connect to internet, within 20 seconds I'm on line with
a welcome screen and started posting this message.

That's where it stands right now.  That three step protocol gets me
running.

Should I have this many svchost.exe's running?
How to kill that pesky SSD Discovery thing?

Robert

As explanation of sequence:

The problem was most obvious when I went to use Internet Explorer, so
I went to the Internet Explorer Group, and as you see got no help
passed the point of receiving a tirade on antiviral software even
though I'm supposed to make certain antiviral software iss turned off
while proceeding with fixes.

After receiving no help, I then went to the group where I've
historically received the most help, Win98 General Discussion Group,
apologized for being off topic and posed my questions there, ...and
did get excellent suggestions to try.  From trying those suggestions,
I was led to discover the problem with WinXP booting up properly and
then running properly.

It now makes sense to pose my questions here in the WinXP Group,
because there is obviously something wrong during the initial boot up
sequence, that MAYBE once fixed will fix my IE6 problem, maybe not.
Either way it seems apparent that something is wrong with WinXP as it
first starts up, so I'm here in the WinXP group asking for help on how
to get the initial sequence for starting my WinXP fixed.  Again, this
initial sequence needs to be fixed because it takes 2 to 4 minutes to
finish booting after the DeskTop appears.  And you cannot believe how
sluggish *any* applications, Control Panel, or other actions are.
We're talking molasses here.  Keep in mind that the system is
isolated.

If I was not complete enough in my description when I first posted to
this group, WinXP General Group; my sincerest apologies.  I was trying
to focus on something not quite right during boot up.

I have received some excellent advice, URL's, and (I'd venture)
silently whispered sympathy.

I think I'm getting close, because *if* I follow my three step
protocol, this machine is a screamer.  I'd just like to make these
three steps automatic each time the machine boots up.

PA Bear, with your expertise on WinXP, fixing this problem should be a
'slam dunk' for you.  Did I miss your suggestions, relating to this
problem?

Robert