When the computer starts Windows is slow to load. Once the wallpaper is visible, but before the desktop icons appear, the following message comes up ‘Setup.ins. Cannot find the file setup.ins (or one of its components)’. This message is quickly followed by the appearance of the desktop icons. No further progress, for instance, appearance of the Norton icons in the system tray occurs until OK is clicked in the message. After clicking OK, another message appears: ‘Desktop. Could not load or run setup.ins specified in the registry. Make sure the file exists on your computer or remove the reference to it in the registry’. Once OK is clicked the remainder of the start-up process is very slow. Can you solve the messages and the slowness of start-up? The computer is a Dell Optiplex Pentium II 266 MHz running Windows 2000.

The setup.ins file is the information file used by particular installers when installing software on your computer. The message which appears saying the setup.ins file cannot be found, signals that something on your computer is trying to run the setup.ins file (or an associated program installer) and because this file is not present the installer cannot run, and therefore the message appears. The second error message indicates the setup.ins file is set to automatically run on startup, through a setting in the Windows registry. So, we will need to find and delete this entry from the registry to prevent the file from running. Go to the ‘Start’ menu > ‘Run’ and type ‘regedit’ (without the quotes) and click OK. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionRun. In the left-hand pane, check for an entry referring to ’setup.ins’. If found, highlight and delete the entry. Follow the same procedure for HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionRun.

Regarding the problem of slow startup, such performance should be expected from a computer with your specifications which is running Windows 2000, since this operating system is quite a load on such a relatively old and slow system. However, there are some ways we can speed-up both startup and general performance. These are good tips for anyone who wants to improve their computer’s performance. Firstly, cut down on the amount of programs which are loading on startup. In Windows 98/Me/XP you can go to the ‘Start’ menu > ‘Run’ and use the neat ‘msconfig’ utility. Unfortunately, Windows 95 and 2000 do not come with this utility. However, there is a free handy utility available called Startup Control Panel for Windows 95 and 2000 which mimics msconfig. See the Tip of the Week for information on this utility. Once you have gotten into msconfig or Startup Control Panel, go through the list of programs which load on startup and untick the programs and processes which you can do without, or can start manually when you want to use them. Be aware: if you don’t know what a particular program or process is, I strongly suggest you don’t disable the entry (as it could be an essential service). A second suggestion is defragment your hard drive. While this is a common suggestion, you will notice a difference. It is best to run Disk Defragmenter through Windows Safe Mode, to avoid other programs interfering with Disk Defragmenter. Finally, you could always try formatting your hard drive and reinstalling Windows, since I am guessing your computer is quite old and has had many programs installed and uninstalled during its lifetime, which may have resulted in a build-up of miscellaneous data.