What Are The "sure" Methods Of Reducing Windows Startup Time?

[persianpower]

What are the "sure" methods of reducing windows startup time?

My bootup speed is annoyingly slow. I know there are a few tips n tricks for reducing the time it takes to reach the desktop from the initial power on.

But what are the most effective of these tricks or hacks?

My details:

Windows XP Home running on a 256RAM, 2.5Ghz P4 laptop (with wireless internet). The computer is used mostly for surfing and P2P.

[Tywais]

Probably the fastest way is to setup your system use 'hibernate' mode when shutting down. This essentially copies an image of the memory to a special disk file and when you startup next time it reads this back into memory. This stops the system having to go to many directories and loadup various programs/drivers etc.

Some more information: http://www.windowsdevcenter.com/pub/a/wind...1/09/XP_startup

[monty]

I do the hibernate thing as well.

I set my powerbutton to induce hibernat, don't have to close programs or open files...

Your computer will reboot to exactly the same state as when you hibernated it.

I do however do a full restart once a week, because it seems windows cleans up quite some temporary files when going to a full shut down...

One thing you can check is if there are not too many unused programs starting up to work in the background. Not only do the slow down the boot process, they are also a burden on your computing resources (mainly memory).

Go to start, run and type msconfig

Then click the start up button and check waht is strted up during booting. Most often there is stuff you never ever use!

Edited August 26, 2006 by monty

[Guest Reimar]

One other thing is the Pagefile. There is a free program named PageDefrag which defragment the Pages file.

Hre the readme incl. link for this program:

"PageDefrag for Windows NT/2K/XP

Copyright © 1998-2002 Mark Russinovich

www.sysinternals.com

Using PageDefrag

----------------

Start PageDefrag from its home directory. Complete usage

instructions are available in the on-line help file.

Terms of Use

------------

This software is provided "as is", without any guarantee made

as to its suitability or fitness for any particular use. It may

contain bugs, so use of this tool is at your own risk. We take

no responsilbity for any damage that may unintentionally be caused

through its use.

You may not distribute PageDefrag in any form,

without express written permission of Mark Russinovich. If you are

interested in redistributing PageDefrag, or obtaining its source

code, please send an e-mail detailing your proposed use to

[email protected].

Reporting Problems

------------------

If you encounter problems, please visit www.sysinternals.com

and download the latest version to see if the issue has been resolved.

If not, please send a bug report to:

[email protected] "

Oyherwise hibernating is a good solution if you want to came back to that stage where you switch of Windows.

Check which programs you need to auto opening at Windows startup. Disable the startup of that programs you dont want in the autostart.

[Tywais]

Go to start, run and type msconfig

Then click the start up button and check waht is strted up during booting. Most often there is stuff you never ever use!

Good suggestion but use it cautiously. If you are not sure what something does in that list probably best to leave it as is.

[Crushdepth]

Reinstalling windows helps a lot if its been on there a long time.

[marshbags]

Thanks to the OP for asking the question and for the solutions from the other posters.

I was starting to get a long start up time so this info comes in handy for me also.

marshbags

[Para]

Your boot time is generally slowed down but services that dont need run to and application automatically starting.

If your not comfortbale manually changing these get hold of a copy of either WinXP Manager or System Mechanic and let them do th ehard work.

I use Startup Faster 2004 to control my bootup apps.

[cnxpat]

there's another utility discussed in the BKK post a few months ago, check out glarysoft.com

A clean windows install is always a good thing though, and when I install anything, I make sure it never starts automatically, since I will use it only when I need it (like skype, msn, Open Office, MS Office).

Cleaning up your desktop (icos) helps as well, I have 2. Recycle Bin and One folder in which I dump everything I collect during the day). I start a program using "Start>All Programs etc ...). Only what I use "all the time" (browser, e-mail, explorer, spreadsheet and php-editor) are in my quick launch toolbar.

And frankly, I don't really care if my computer takes 1 or 2 minutes (or 2 or 4 for that matter) to start up once or twice a day. I fire it up in the morning (have to wait for IPStar router to wake up as well), have a sh*, sh* and sh* and it works fine for the next 16 hours.

But it seems you're talking an unbearable amount of time!? What exactly is the startup time now?

(And I thought we were in the land of smiles :-) sabaay sabaay, cha cha and jay jin jin of course!)

[A_Traveller]

Hi,

One suggestion is the software from www.wheresjames.com 'Startup Manager'. The advantage of this is that data is displayed and can be toggled off. Another advantage of this is that by clicking on an icon by the program a search will try to tell you what the program is. This can help you decide what to keep, what to turn off and what to delete from your start-up process.

One irony is that it does install itself as an auto-starter

Regards

[Firefoxx]

Well, if you use your computer often, you can just put it in "standby" mode, just like a notebook. It will shut down most of the major power users, but still use a bit of power. Of course, one press of the power button and you have nearly instant-on. I use this for my media center PC. My work PC, I rarely turn off.

For reducing the actual startup time, you can start by not installing so many programs, and actually intelligently choosing what components of programs you will install. For example, many many MANY programs come with some TSR-type tray icon that checks for updates or media or clicks or whatnot. They're loading during startup, so choosing *not* to install them will reduce startup time.

Of course, a faster CPU, a faster harddrive, and a lot of memory also does wonders for the startup time.

[geoffphuket]

Reinstalling windows helps a lot if its been on there a long time.

Throught all the versions of Windows, I have always found at some point, this is the only solution

[sleepyjohn]

What are the "sure" methods of reducing windows startup time?

My bootup speed is annoyingly slow.

Buy a Macbook.

Time to close down MacOSX and open Windows fully= 50 seconds!