When trouble shooting with msconfig, my first line of attack is to untick everything except your anti virus program. In fact, that and a firewall, if you're not using the Windows one, are the only programs you need at startup.

The other thing that works, despite denials from certain other techies, is to go to Start/Run and type in 'Prefetch' (without the quotes). Then go to Edit in the top tool bar and Select All. Then hit Delete. All computers get much faster afterwards. Remember to empty the Recycle Bin after you've done that.

The Prefetch solution is only available in XP and Vista.