XP DNS Client Service
My Windows XP/SP2 box (yes, I confess, I still have one, dual-booting with SuSE 9.2) was taking AGES (10min+) to boot. A little sleuthing narrowed it down to the svchost process loading the DNS Client service that was taking so long (and occupying 99% of the CPU).
Couldn't figure it out - thought it might be due to SFU or cygwin but no. Out of curiosity disabled the service, anticipating that it would then no longer be able to resolve DNS names. Result, fast boot and no problems accessing anything.
I run an old P2 box with Freesco (a cut-down Linux) as the internet gateway for the home network and of course this has a DNS resolver. What is happening? Is the Freesco box doing the DNS resolving? Presumably so.
Still curious as to why DNS Client was taking so long to load. Tried flushing the DNS cache to see if that make any difference but no again. My kid's XP/SP2 box on the same network boots quickly and the DNS Client service is still enabled there.
Any ideas anyone?