Windows XP boots up too slow

[Luis234]

I formatted my hard drive last week and done a fresh installation of Windows. I did that because my boot up was too slow.

I don't have any anti virus installed, all useless processes are turned off at start up, system restore and auto update is also turned off,

But the problem is that my computer still boots very slow, I don't know why. Do someone have any ideas why is this happening to me?

[Nihir]

Over time, computers get slower for a variety of reasons: files become disorganized, unnecessary software consumes resources, unused network drives slow startup, or too many programs automatically run at startup. Larger, serious issues can dramatically slow your computer's performance too. You may have a virus or need to troubleshoot problems by clean booting.

1. Remove any unnecessary programs (Start -> Control Panel -> Add or Remove Programs)

2. Another way to find wastage of disk space is to use the Disk Cleanup tool (My Computer -> right-click Local Disk -> Properties -> General tab -> Disk Cleanup)

3. Over time, more and more files become fragmented. When a file is fragmented, it takes longer for the computer to read it because it has to skip to different sections of the hard disk. So its better idea to defragment a drive or volume (My Computer -> right-click Local Disk -> Properties -> Tools tab -> Defragment Now)

4. Disconnect Unused Network Connections (My Computer -> Tools -> Disconnect Network Drive -> Select the network drives that you no longer need, and then click OK)

5. Remove any unnecessary programs that starts automatically (Start -> Run -> Msconfig -> Startup tab -> Uncheck any item/processes/applications that you don't need -> Apply -> Restart your computer)

[mv]

Click on Start - Run and type eventvwr.msc. This is called Windows Event Viewer. Here you'll find all the information you needed. It will tell you what all programs loads at the time of Windows Startup.

[Rajesh4mLA]

According to Microsoft, Windows XP was designed to boot up within about 30 seconds. Add several additional services and that can become a minute. You can probably slush it but not much. It depends on how much additional functionally you want to be included. If you need multiple services enabled (for example Services for Unix) you might need probably up to two minutes. time also depends of speed of your CPU and speed of hard drive. From 2GHz dual core CPU with 2G of RAM and 7200 RPM harddrive you can expect 30 sec boot in most cases.

Some useful Tips:

• Turn off automatic updates. You can do them manually once a week
  
• Periodically, once a week or once a month defragment your C drive and other drives that you are using frequently.
  
• Sometimes very slow startup means that you have remote drives for which server is currently unavailable mapped permanently for your desktop. The simplest solution is to delete all such mappings.
  
• Opera is not a bad browser that might fit your needs (Even Firefox is a resource pig: not a big improvement over IE). It has the initial memory footprint of approximately 16MB.
  
• Acrobat Reader 7.xx or later on 256M PC even slows down things by consuming too much memory and increases size of swap file.

[Alexisus]

Many software suppliers like to run small programs in the background so their application loads quickly. But they all take time to preload and can slow down your machine. Also, viruses and Trojans run as background programs, so it's a good idea to keep an eye on what's being loaded.