just recently Max has been talking a very long time to initialise (the very first part of the loading procedure before plugin loading).
i moved my max.ini file away so max would create a new default one. This fixed the problem except im back with my default looking interface. if i load a custom ui, the problem comes back. >>MAX 4.2.6
any thoughts?

No insights from me I'm afriad, but I also suffer from 2.5 minute load times, I'll try your .ini trick tonight, see if I can narrow it down at my end

i ran a few (like 3) defrags on my drive and all came right.
might be worth you tryng that too.
hope it helps you....

I tried removeing my i.ni file last night and that seemed to make a big difference. Same with the plugin .ini. Still its hard to pin down.... Also latter I restored the old .ini file and Max still loaded speedily, its weird, seems like giving it a fresh .ini fixes most of the problem though...

My guess is that it's something in your CUI. I had a problem that would crash max on load in my CUI a while back. I zipped up my CUI directory and the QE team at Discreet were able to pin point the file that was causing the crash. If you can't fix this issue with your ini's I would contact Discreet and send them your CUI directory and see if they can't give you some insite and/or correct the problem.
--
Dave