Speed-up booting process?

[Demetrius]

hello friends

i have a system with Windows XP as an operating system.
want to know if there is any program or procedure to speed up booting process in my Windows XP ?

[Devasis]

System BIOS Changes

One of the first places to help speed boot time in Windows is to make some simple changes to the system BIOS. The BIOS or Basic Input/Output System is a set of instructions and commands built into the motherboard that allows the computer to know what type of hardware is connected and how to communicate with that hardware. You'll first have to gain access to the BIOS setup screen to make any changes. Do not make changes to the system settings in the BIOS lightly, one mistake can render the computer unbootable and cause more problems than its worth. For this reason, do not attempt making changes to the system BIOS unless you are willing to accept the risk along with it. With that said, you'll want to follow the directions below and make some simple changes to speed up the boot process.

1) You must start with the computer completely off, not in sleep or hibernation mode. Then turn the computer on.

2) Enter the system BIOS screen by the manufacturers suggestion. Depending on the computer, this may involve pressing the DEL key, pressing F1, Pressing F10, holding down CTRL-ALT-S, or a variety of other keystrokes to get to the BIOS screen. For a more complete list of keystrokes to enter the BIOS screen, visit Michael Steven's page on the subject.

3) Once in the BIOS setup, look for a BOOT menu and select it with your keyboard arrow keys, Tab, and Enter.

4) In most modern BIOS screens, you'll find an option for Quick Boot. Enable this to skip memory tests and other minor Power On Self Tests (POST).

5) Find an option for Boot Device Priority next, and change the first boot device to be the hard drive. Changing this option will speed up the boot process, but it will also not allow the computer to boot from a floppy disk or CD-ROM. If booting from anything other than the hard drive is important to you, please skip this step. If later on, you need to boot from a CD-ROM, simply re-enter the BIOS setup and make the CD-ROM the first boot device.

6) Choose the option to Exit and Save Changes and the computer will reboot.

Changes to Windows Settings

The next group of changes to consider will be to the many Windows settings. We will use a handy tool called the System Configuration Utility to accomplish most of these changes. Follow the steps below to open and use this tool.

Startup Tab Changes

1) Click on Start, Run and type MSCONFIG and press Enter

2) Click on the STARTUP tab in the System Configuration Utility to view all the items that begin on Startup. An example is shown below

Each item on the Startup tab that is checked loads immediately after Windows starts. If there are lots of items here, this will slow down the boot time for Windows considerably. Each of these items can be toggled on or off simply by using the checkmark box to the left of the item.

The column directly to right of the checkmark is the Name of the program, while the next column over is the location on the hard drive or other device of the file. Finally the last column shows where in the computer the file is started from. This location could be in the registry as is the case with all the locations that begin with HKLM or HKCU, or it could be in the Windows Startup folder found under ALL PROGRAMS in Windows XP.

You can examine each of these startup items and uncheck any that are not necessary. How do you know which ones are not necessary? Well, in most computer configurations, you'll want drivers running for your graphics or video controller and sound card, and most likely an antivirus and firewall running. Other startup items are usually extras that could be eliminated from boot up. To discover what a particular item is used for, jot down the name for the item and go over to a site called Process Library, type in the name of the process and click Find. This is a very handy tool for discovering which startup items are truly needed.

When you are done modifying the checkmarks to the Startup tab, click OK and you'll be asked to reboot the system.

Adding more Memory (RAM)

Other than upgrading the motherboard and CPU, you can generally increase the amount of RAM in your computer to make it load programs and applications faster and provide a more enjoyable computing experience. You'll want to check your motherboard to make sure you have available slots and the maximum amount of RAM you can add to your particular motherboard.

Replacing your Hard Drive with a Faster RPM Drive

If you have a slower hard drive such as a 5400 RPM or slower, you may want to consider upgrading to a faster 7200 RPM
hard drive. The difference in RPM speed will generally be quite noticeable.

Changing to Static IP

If your computer is connected to a local area network that you control and you have a DHCP server enabled on your router, during the boot process the computer queries the network to valid IP address. You can shave seconds off your boot time by assigning a valid IP address to your computer instead of using DHCP to assign it. To setup a Static IP for your computer, follow these directions.

1) Click on Start, Run
2) Type NCPA.CPL and press Enter to open the Network Connection Control Panel
Switching from Master/Slave to Cable Select
3) Right-click on the Local Area Connection and choose Properties
4) Click on Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and click Properties
5) You should see a screen similar to the one below. Fill in your static IP, subnet, default gateway, and DNS server information and click OK. If you aren't sure of your IP ranges on your router, consult your router manual or a friend that is more knowledgeable in networking terminology. Again, this is an optional item and does not necessarily need to be accomplished. Using DHCP is fine, although you sacrifice a few seconds for an IP to be assigned to from the network.

[Lillebror]

Speed up boot times
Remove unnecessary programs from Windows shartup
The first thing you can check is to see how many programs are booting up on their own at start up. There are two ways to do this. You can see what programs are in the Startup menu, delete them and make sure the Preferences settings in each program keeps them from booting up. This will cut down on the time it takes for Windows to boot, and it is the simplest way to speed things up. Click here to view deails on how to remove unnecessary programs from Windows startup.

Remove Spyware & Adware
If your computer is still running slow when booting, make sure you run a full adware and spyware scan. This will often eliminate processes hidden in the background full of tracking information that will slow down your boot time along with response time. Running a virus scan, too, will be beneficial in the long run to boot time as well.

Perform a Boot Defragment
There's a simple way to speed up XP startup: make your system do a boot defragment, which will put all the boot files next to one another on your hard disk. When boot files are in close proximity to one another, your system will start faster.

On most systems, boot defragment should be enabled by default, but it might not be on yours, or it might have been changed inadvertently. To make sure that boot defragment is enabled on your system, run the Registry Editor (regedit) and go to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOptimizeFunction
Edit the Enable string value to Y if it is not already set to Y. Exit the Registry and reboot. The next time you reboot, you'll do a boot defragment.

Hack Your BIOS for Faster Startups
When you turn on your PC, it goes through a set of startup procedures in its BIOS before it gets to starting XP. So, if you speed up those initial startup procedures, you'll make your system start faster.

You can speed up your startup procedures by changing the BIOS with the built-in setup utility. How you run this utility varies from PC to PC, but you typically get to it by pressing the Delete, F1, or F10 keys during startup. You'll come to a menu with a variety of choices. Here are the choices to make for faster system startups:

Quick Power On Self Test (POST)
When you choose this option, your system runs an abbreviated POST rather than the normal, lengthy one.

Fine-Tune Your Registry for Faster Startups
Over time, your Registry can become bloated with unused entries, slowing down your system startup because your system loads them every time you start up your PC. Get a Registry clean-up tool to delete unneeded Registry entries and speed up startup times. Registry First Aid, shown in Figure 1, is an excellent Registry clean-up tool. It combs your Registry for outdated and useless entries and then lets you choose which entries to delete and which to keep. It also creates a full Registry backup so that you can restore the Registry if you run into a problem.

Boot Up Floppy Seek
Disable this option. When it's enabled, your system spends a few extra seconds looking for your floppy drive¡ªa relatively pointless procedure, especially considering how infrequently you use your floppy drive.

Boot Delay
Some systems let you delay booting after you turn on your PC so that your hard drive gets a chance to start spinning before bootup. Most likely, you don't need to have this boot delay, so turn it off. If you run into problems, however, you can turn it back on.

[SalVatore]

In order to speed up Windows XP's boot process.
A lot of programs boot during startup and run in the background, but many don't have to. Here's how you can prevent certain programs from running at startup.
1. Click Start and Run.
2. Type "msconfig" (without quotation marks).
3. Click OK.
4. Go to the Startup tab and uncheck the options you don't want to load at startup.
5. Click OK.
There are not many boot-optimization programs available for Windows XP.