help me with slow opening exe files

[Nariman]

I have a problem. A problem which persists even after a clean format and fresh installation of OS and programs.
When I click on any .exe file it takes more than 30 to 50 seconds for its execution. All this time the cursor is busy as it was searching for something. Thereafter every thing is fine.
It takes more than a minute to open IE or Firefox for the first time. Am using XP Pro SP2 with 1 gb ram.
There are no bad sectors or cross linked files on any of my drives.There is no disk fragmentation, no spyware, no virus and no duplicate files on any of my drives.
Can any one of you help me to find out what is happening and to resolve this issue.
Regards
Nariman

[Pat]

What does your task manager say ? Any process eating ur RAM or CPU ??