My work machine has Vista on it. Over time it has gotten slower and slower until now it takes about 4-5 minutes to boot. About a minute of that is spent with a dark screen and no disk activity.

Is there a way to speed it up again without doing a reinstallation? I just don't want to waste half a day rebuilding it. I've defragged the disk, removed uneeded programmes etc, but it hasn't made any obvious difference.

(Yes, I know Vista sucks, its not my box).

There are a few "Start Up" tools available that stop or delay unwanted programs during boot up.

Startup Delayer - http://www.r2.com.au/page/products/page/2/show/startdelay

Soluto - http://www.soluto.com/

I've used both, and they are both quite good. Soluto is probably better if you are not sure what programs HAVE to start up during boot up.

Use MSCONFIG to disable unnecessary Startup items.

You may also want to do the same to Vista Services -- see this guide.

An alternate to MSCONFIG is to use Microsoft's Autoruns. On the computers I've used it, it found more start-up entries than MSCONFIG. Plus, you can either simply un-check the entries to disable them, or you can actually delete them permanently.

On Vista/Win7, right-click on the executable (or its shortcut, if you use one) and grant it administrator rights, or you won't be able to modify/delete any entry.

Thanks, its a bit better (an Ubuntu install on the same machine still leaves it for dead though). Soluto is pretty cool.

I installed soluto last year and it helped to ID the main culprits on my slow booting Vista wreck. However, I have since uninstalled it as it couldn't really tell me why most boots were 5 minute jibs with the odd 12 minute one thrown in. I will admit, there's a whole lotta sh!te installed on my laptop. When it finally goes tits-up, it's coming back with Win 7.

One annoying problem I have had with Vista is a 'dead' IE. When I did an upgrade a few years back from IE6 to IE7, the browser died; totally unresponsive and stayed that way despite being rolled back to IE6. Later, when IE8 was installed, it came back to life. A few weeks ago, I allowed the upgrade to IE9RC and you guessed it, it's gone deaf & dumb again despite being rolled back to the previously working IE8.

Total crap. Use Chrome and Firefox mostly but now and again, you still come across a program or utility or secure website that defaults to IE.

Make sure to dump yahoo and msn messenger.

Delete any software you don't use.....esp file download / share programs.

Are you using more than 1 anti viruis program? They can conflict and slow a PC right down.

Check to see if the computer is running any AV scans when it boots up..again this could slow the start up of the PC into Windows...you can always tell it do this later.

And also if you don't delete or clean your temp files / explorer history...this will make it slow .

Best bit of free of software ccleaner...downloadable here:

http://download.cnet.com/ccleaner/

Tiny program, does most of the stuff listed above, allows you to uninstall programs, see and disable start up process's, fix regisitary problems and most of all clean all your temp files from i.e, adobe, firefox, microsoft, etc

Quick to install, easy to use, I use it on EVERY pc, i work on personal, friends, customers...can make an amazing differance to old cluttered pc's. Some people have up 4GB of temp files from years of use, hence they're computer runs very very slow, and use's up avaliable space.

Than after all the above defrag agaiin......that should help..

If you want to backup your system as it is now...there are free programs online, that will allow you to copy your windows, files and programs as is.....Regually use these and backup my windows on to DVD's or external HDD (or even usb if you have a large flast drive)

Hierens boot CD is aval online (look for the older version, not the latest, they cracked down on the really useful tools) and used to have tools to clone your HDD, so if you want to wipe and have problems, try a new operating system etc.....you can return PC back to how it is now.

I forgot we also used to use malwarebytes :

http://download.cnet...4-10804572.html

This will search for malware and hidden viruis's, again in my last job this was the offically program used to fix and try recover virus'd pc's (because it's free and better than all other programs they'd tried, with no addons, uninstall issue's etc).

Just make sure you update before you use it, and it used to have a problem conecting to 1 of the update servers..so try all 3? But they may have fixed this.

And again forget to mention..make sure Vsita is up to date..service packs and fixes can solve know issues.