By "powerful machine" I meant overall. Harddrive space is also not an issue, as there is around 90 gb free.

Freshly logged in and with no other programs running, it takes 6 minutes for the loading screen to appear. Once the loading screen appears, Maya starts in a matter of seconds. I'm guessing that this might be an issue other than loading Maya, but I'm hoping something simple can fix it. This is version 7.0 complete btw.

Relevant System Specs:
Windows XP Pro SP 2
2.8 ghz Xeon
1 gb RAM
109 gb hdd, 83.6 gb free