Methods of decreasing boot time

[Kenn]

Personal opinion rant: The Symantec tools are absolutely horrible. They have multiple uninstalls, take up multiple folders, throw up multiple and ill-named services, and of course eat up system resources and boot time like crazy. I couldn't even open a folder without a tell-tale half-second lag each time.

Bootvis is nice, and I use it regularly, but I think the single best way to keep boot times low is to trim startup processes using msconfig and services.msc. Stuff like Acrobat Helper, ipodservice, Office quickstart, those java and realplayer schedulers, and all of the IBM stuff other than APS and the quickconnect suite are either completely useless are perfectly happy starting up at application runtime rather than at boot.

And unfortunately, when all else fails, a yearly reformat does wonders, so long as you keep a backup of all your data

[Kyocera]

Kenn:
Personal opinion rant: The Symantec tools are absolutely horrible.

This is more like fact. I used to try and babysit, tinker, modify, maintain, keep safe, my three computers, two laps and one desk. Now I run linux on the desk keep all backups there on a slave, and reinstall my entire hard drives at the first sign of any problem, sluggishness, weird event errors basically anything that bugs me. And usually reinstall every three months regardless.

I use AVG on one lap and Norton on the other (because the subscription is still active) but I'll be using AVG exclusively when Norton runs out.

[Kenn]

I use AVG on one lap and Norton on the other (because the subscription is still active) but I'll be using AVG exclusively when Norton runs out.

I guess it's good you don't have that 99-year active subscription hack

[stangri]

if you're a developer, a Microsoft employee or just don't care about the price of your OS -- have Windows 2003 Server installed instead of XP. it boots much faster and let's you actually start doing something while the start-up programs are being loaded.
supposedly Vista will be the same in terms of boot-time, but the released beta leaves much to desire.

[brainpicker]

I guess it's good you don't have that 99-year active subscription hack

I've not run across THAT one Kenn... but if I did I might (just maybe) try it... you know for just a minute... just to see if it really works . Then I'd surely remember to take it out... you know, like all the software I spent hours and hours uninstalling that the previous owner accidently "left" on his HDD for my "evaluation" !

'Guess I'll be "Googling" for it!

(To Mods... this is tongue-in-cheek and not a "warez" request)

Yak

[PrincipalValiant]

Don't want to brag, but I've got aT23 (with cdrw/dvd, usb media and netbios services and other commonly used stuff all functional) that boots in 14.57 seconds. See my specs below

Haven't read the whole thread, someone might have said my secrets already, but here they are again: defragment frequently (you can never defrag enough, reboot in safe mode and defrag for hard to defrag data), check msconfig and identify only services and programs that you use, uncheck things that you for sure don't use (like stupid taskbar icons for java and quicktime) then try unchecking random things and if anything stops functioning undo what you did, if not, then you've just cut down your boot time, you should be able to find a copy of microsoft bootvis, itll tell you your boot time as well as lay out the files your computer reads on boot to speed it, if you want to save a half a second you can disable the little GUI screen with the moving worm bar thing and the Windows XP logo in msconfig check NOBOOTGUI on the respective screen

set your bios to boot from the hard disk as the first option, if (when) you want to boot from anything else you can hold down f11 for a menu

also, dhcp takes a long time to resolve at boot, so if you can set up a PPP connection, do

The best list of explanations for windows services I've found is here: http://www.z123.org/techsupport/xpservices.htm

If you follow these steps I guarantee you at least a time below 30 seconds, if you follow them well you'll get to under 20

[PrincipalValiant]

Copy all the fonts from your fonts control panel folder to a backup then delete all from the control panel folder. Things might go a bit nutty, but windows will re install mandatory fonts on reboot, then just copy all the times fonts or anything else you would like to keep from your backup folder.

Also disable any unused devices in Device Manager, loading drivers will steal a few seconds from you. Modems, parallel, serial and infrared ports should probably be shut off. My new boot time is 13.28 seconds on the machine listed in my signature, I hope to bring it to 11 even when I find a 1.2ghz PIII.


Here is a link to a screenshot of bootvis

http://img207.imageshack.us/my.php?image=boot7hm.jpg


My personal configuration of services (which still allows network browsing, cdburning, usb memory, printing, wireless, installing or uninstalling programs and anything else I commonly do) is as follows

SERVICES.MSC
AUTOMATIC

Avast! Antivirus
Cryptographic services
Dcom server proce
Dhcp client
Dns client
Event log
Plug and play
Print spooler
Protected storage
Remote procedure call
System event notification
Windows audio
Workstation

MANUAL
Application layer gateway service
Application management
*avast web scanner
Com + event system
Com+ system application
http ssl
imapi cd burning com service
*network connections
network provisioning service
performance elogs and alerts
remote procedure call locator
removeable storage
universal plug and play device host
volume shadow copy
*Wireless zero configuration
Windows installer

The rest are disabled, note that if you want to use bootvis' "optimize system" feature you need to set Task Scheduler to automatic before you reboot and you can disable it after. The only programs I have in startup (which allow the ibm hotkeys to function, nhc to start and avast to run) are nhc, ashDisp, tp4serv and tphkmgr.

Keep in mind that not only does cutting the fat decrease boot time, but it also increases system performance while your compouter is up. Keeping your services to a minimum also reduces the chance of your computer being compromised, especially when stupid services like remote registry, remote login and things of that sort are enabled by default.

[PrincipalValiant]

One more tip to shave your boot time (got mine to 12.04 seconds)...

DISABLE AUTO DETECTION OF EMPTY IDE SLOTS
Submitted by Bold_Fortune : http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?s ... 45&hl=boot
"Saved 1.5 Seconds Off My Boot Time, I know I know, Big Deal"
It worked for me!

Another quick trick for a faster boot up is to disable the auto detection that Windows XP uses to determine if there are IDE devices present in any of the IDE slots on the motherboard. More specifically, disable this feature on any empty slots to prevent the operating system wasting time and resources checking them.

Right click on 'my computer' > select 'properties' > Go to the 'hardware' tab and select 'device manager' to open the device management window.

Expand 'IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers' and highlight the 'primary IDE channel.'
Right click the highlighted entry and select 'properties.'
Go to the 'advanced settings' tab.

If either IDE slot on the controller is empty, the 'device type' dropdown box will be not grayed out. Set it to 'none' to disable auto detection of IDE devices on that particular slot.

Repeat the above steps for the 'secondary IDE controller.'
Note that if you wish to add a new IDE device, you will have to reset the 'device type' setting to 'autodetect' in order for Windows to use the new drive.

I also hear that disabling the startup chime thing that windows plays speeds older machines up a bit, you can find this setting in the sound control panel

I've spent some time figuring out which fonts some programs like IE or firefox use and my smallest list while filtering the unnecessary stuff is as follows

Arial,
Courier
Franklin gothic
Georgia
Microsoft sans
Modern
MS Reference
Ms Sans Serif
Script
Tahoma
Times
Veranada

Whats the matter, why is no one else so enthusiastic about their machine running efficiently?

EDIT: boot time is now 10.28 seconds

[nickbd]

Booting takes over 10mins on this machine. The drive light stays on all the time but listening to the drive there appears to be nothing happening (ie. no head movement noise). The machine was OK for several years so I don't know what has happened to it. I restored the original software from the hidden partition and it was still slow. Then I set the BIOS to the default settings and it was fine for a time. Now it is slow again even after setting the BIOS to the defaults. I've run the Hitachi diagnostics for the hard drive and they are fine. As are all the tests in PC Doctor for the drive and everything else there. I also took out the DVD CDRW in case it was upsetting things and this didn't help. Running Bootvis just shows it spends forever loading bits of the drivers. AVG takes a long time but even after removing it the others take a long time as well. Are there any comprehensive diagnostics for the T40 motherboard and any relevant peripherals. Any ideas on what is wrong here?
Thanks Nick

[nickbd]

I went into the device manager and set the IDE to PIO only and the drives are at least 20x faster, not sure if speed is normal but I think the problem is in the driver for the IDE controller. Does anyone know where to obtain the driver for the Intel 82801 DBM Ultra ATA Storage Controller 24CA. On the IBM site I can't find a driver for this or anywhere for that matter. The driver for the DMA controller on the IBM site is for different hardware.
Thanks Nick

[ibmuser]

Disable all Windows XP task sounds go to "Start", "Settings", "Control Panel", "Sounds and Audio Devices", select the "Sounds" tab, under "Sound Scheme" select "No Sounds". This affects both startup and shutdown speeds slightly.