How To Improve Slow (4-minute) Boot Speed?

[JetsetBkk]

...

4) The event viewer has, amongst others :

LightScribeService (part of my printer's driver which I can't isolate to delete).

Richvideo

Kservice

Regsrvc

Hpqddsvc (probably that HP printer again -- even though it's switched off).

Hpqcxs08

EvtEng

...

1. Are these Event Log entries 'warnings' or 'errors'? We are really interested in those that are logged during the start-up time.

2. Is there any disk activity during the "black screen" period of the start-up? This should be indicated by an LED or lamp flickering.

[onethailand]

Memory check is in the BIOS. But if you can boot in Safe mode in 40 seconds, memory check won't be the problem.

Jeffer and Jetset have the right ideas. If the printer was the most recent thing you installed, and it happens to be off, the delay may well be that the drivers automatically try to establish a connection to the printer. Perhaps the best way to solve this problem is to uninstall the printer software, reboot, let Windows detect the printer and install the necessary drivers. This way you don't have the huge overhead of the HP software at bootup.

[onethailand]

Try this:

1. Start Menu -> Run

2. Type in "services.msc"

3. Scroll down the list of services for the "HP Network Devices

Support" service, and double-click on it

4. Set "Startup Time" to "Manual"

Apparently (and at least once based on my experience a couple of years ago) HP multifunction printers are notorious for slowing down a computer.

[Trevor]

This article is helpful for the 'services.msc' function : http://adifia.wordpress.com/2007/04/26/xp-...artup-services/

I set the HP to manual but how do I start up the printer driver when I need it?

I ran an error check and fix overnight and the boot time is now down to 1 minute, which is reasonable. What's yours?

Yes, HP machines not only scrunch paper easily if you don't feed it dead square, but take 36 MB of space for the drivers, and that's without the user feedback rubbish which I didn't install.

Tried updating your graphics drivers? No, how can I do that? Thanks for all the tips -- good result.

[Samuian]

HP is notorious for slowing down the boot up and are "sticky" as hel_l, I disabled it and on boot up - there it was again - what did I do wrong?

[onethailand]

HP is notorious for slowing down the boot up and are "sticky" as hel_l, I disabled it and on boot up - there it was again - what did I do wrong?

If you tried to disable it through the software... like you said, it's "sticky" - always finds a way to re-enable itself. Exact same thing for me, so I uninstalled and haven't installed HP software since.

Trevor - a minute's not bad Certainly better than 4!

As for using the printer - let XP install drivers, you will still be able to scan and print - just not using HP's software, that's all.

Edited August 19, 2008 by onethailand

[jeffer]

Graphics driver update? Device Manager >Displayer Adaptors. Open whatever you have in there and you can update your drivers. You can also go direct to the site e.g. Intel, NVidea, ATI etc. and get drivers there, maybe more recent.

Setting your HP to manual isn't a problem. Should only mean if you want to scan something it takes a couple of seconds extra to load before it starts scanning as opposed to always running in the background. Every bit of hardware and software thinks it's important and will run at start up if you let it but how many things do you use constantly? Does a Microsoft mouse always need to phone home, if you're only burning one lightscribe disc a month does a lightscribe service need to run each time you start your computer, does anyone really need Windows Media Player, iTunes, QuickTime, Real Player and WinAmp all loading at startup? Take a look in the Task Manager of some computers and there can be a huge list of items, many rarely used, same with having a desktop with wall to wall icons, all takes time to load. Even on a fast computer with plenty of memory these things will slowdown your boot time.

[JetsetBkk]

...the boot time is now down to 1 minute, which is reasonable. ...

Well done and congrats!

[Trevor]

Re. making changes in 'services.msc' : should I make any changes in 'extended' or 'standard'?

I did delete some networking programs I'll never use but it disconnected my DNS, losing my Internet connection -- so had to change DNS back to automatic. Another thing, after tweaking 'services.msc' all the fonts on the lower taskbar have reverted to the simple 'safe mode' style. How can I revert to the standard XP style?

Boot time is now a little slower at 1' 30"; is that comparable to yours?

[onethailand]

Re. making changes in 'services.msc' : should I make any changes in 'extended' or 'standard'?

I did delete some networking programs I'll never use but it disconnected my DNS, losing my Internet connection -- so had to change DNS back to automatic. Another thing, after tweaking 'services.msc' all the fonts on the lower taskbar have reverted to the simple 'safe mode' style. How can I revert to the standard XP style?

Boot time is now a little slower at 1' 30"; is that comparable to yours?

Didn't mean for you to tweak everything through services.msc - just the HP printer software. Nearly everything else should be done through the Control Panel or the software itself.

For fonts, you probably would need to go to Control Panel/Display settings.

[Trevor]

Re. making changes in 'services.msc' : should I make any changes in 'extended' or 'standard'?

I did delete some networking programs I'll never use but it disconnected my DNS, losing my Internet connection -- so had to change DNS back to automatic. Another thing, after tweaking 'services.msc' all the fonts on the lower taskbar have reverted to the simple 'safe mode' style. How can I revert to the standard XP style?

Boot time is now a little slower at 1' 30"; is that comparable to yours?

Didn't mean for you to tweak everything through services.msc - just the HP printer software. Nearly everything else should be done through the Control Panel or the software itself.

For fonts, you probably would need to go to Control Panel/Display settings.

I took the opportunity whilst in services.msc to disable some networking utilities which I would never use -- but something has changed the style of window (and reduced-window) framing/font styles making them look more basic like safe mode. Unfortunately control panel > display settings contains nothing on fonts, although I did take the opportunity to update the display driver as someone suggested; there was no newer version.

Overall I'm very pleased with the helpful suggestions made in this thread which will help anyone with a slow boot-up from cold.

[onethailand]

When you were playing with services.msc, did you change the settings of "Themes"?

[Lancelot]

I recently sold my 5 year old Toshiba lap top.

Start up was taking sooooooooooooo long and I decided to reinstall windows to make it more sellable.

Man, I could not believe how fast it opened files and startd up/shut down!

[Samuian]

I recently sold my 5 year old Toshiba lap top.

Start up was taking sooooooooooooo long and I decided to reinstall windows to make it more sellable.

Man, I could not believe how fast it opened files and start up/shut down!

Guess besides Windows is something like a garbage collector... collecting, collecting and keeping the garbage for eternity unless the user makes the move... as you did!

wipe clean - re-install seems to be still the best of all options!

[onethailand]

Wipe clean/reinstall should only be used as a last resort, or when a computer is about to be sold on and you want the computer to be as "new" as possible. In the days of Windows F-ME and below, a reinstall would also be used to restore corrupted files as a last resort - but Windows XP rarely has this problem.

Ultimately, a reinstall will perform the following functions:

New O/S (with all the old drivers which will need replacing)

Clean registry (can be done manually with a registry cleaner/optimizer)

Remove any software installations (obviously, you can uninstall anything you don't want)

Less defragmentation (use the defragment tool in Windows)

Removes all personal or private files (which you obviously don't want to do).

It's the last point which is the most important.

Lancelot's reinstall makes perfect sense because he was selling his laptop. But otherwise, only under really dire circumstances should a tech ever recommend a reinstall of Windows 2000, XP, or Vista. I don't think the OP's situation could be considered dire in the least.