XP painfully slow to start - Access Connections

XP painfully slow to start - Access Connections

I have a mysterious problem with my XP laptop. Since a) installing the latest windows updates and b) using Picasa 3.6 to look through dozens of GB of photos for faces, it now takes ages (first time: 45mins, second time: 10 mins) to get from login to a populated desktop. The whole time the hard drive light is on.