I don't know about you, but I love spending the first 10 minutes of
every workday watching Windows start up. It's like a Zen thing. If you'd
rather get right to work, though, the following tips should help you
make Windows start much more quickly.
Lighten the Load
A typical PC loads a lot of programs every time it starts. Each
of the icons in your system tray (the area near your clock) represents
an auto-start application. And there are probably other programs on your
machine that start automatically but don't make their presence known so
easily. Each autoloading app slows your boot time--a little or a lot.
And because most of them continue to run in the background, they rob you
of a little performance.
Before you start eliminating autoloaders, though, make sure you can undo
your changes. In Windows XP, Select Start, All Programs,
Accessories, System Tools, System Restore.
Select Create a restore point, click Next, call your
restore point something like before removing autoloaders, and
choose Create. Click Close once you've created the
restore point.
In Windows Vista, select Start, Control Panel,
System. Under 'Tasks' on the right side of the window, click
System Protection. In the System Properties box that comes up,
click Create at the bottom of the window.
XP users should now select Start, Run, type
msconfig, and press <Enter>. (In Vista, select Start,
type msconfig into the Search box, and press <Enter>.)
Click the Startup tab, and you'll see a list of all your
autoloading programs, each with a check box. Uncheck an item, and it
will no longer load at startup.
Choose Your Autoloading Apps
Which applications should you leave checked so that they
continue to autoload? First and foremost, you don't want to operate
without your antivirus, firewall, and other security programs. Yes,
these programs slow your PC's boot-up and shutdown, and they can even
cause conflicts, but the cost of not having them running is too high to
bear.
For any other program in the list, use your judgment. Don't ask yourself
"Is it a good program?" but "Does it need to be on all the time?" For
instance, I unchecked Adobe Elements' Photo Downloader, a program that I
use whenever I download photos from my camera, because it serves no
purpose when I'm not downloading photos. On the other hand, I allow
Copernic Desktop Search to autoload because it needs to index my data
files continually.
After unchecking the programs that you don't need to autoload at
startup, click OK and reboot. Windows will load with a very wordy
message box that might look like an error message. Just check Don't
show this message or launch the System Configuration Utility when
Windows starts (the wording is slightly different in Vista) at the
bottom of the dialog box and click OK.
Windows Dusting and Cleaning
If an autoloader diet doesn't sufficiently accelerate your
boot-up, try these tweaks:
Clean out the Registry: The larger your Windows
Registry, the longer the OS will take to boot. My favorite Registry
cleaner is ChemTable's $30
Reg Organizer, which is both a powerful Registry editor and a
general Windows maintenance tool. If you don't want to pay to put things
in order, try the less-powerful
EasyCleaner from ToniArts.
Use fewer fonts: Loading hundreds of system fonts takes
time. If you have more than 500 fonts on your PC, remove a few. Sue
Fisher's free
The Font
Thing utility will help you whittle your font selection down to
size.
Add RAM: Faster hardware means faster boots (and
shutdowns, and everything in between). There's no cheaper, more
effective way to improve your hardware's performance than by adding RAM.
See our video tip, "
How
to Upgrade Your RAM" for step-by-step instructions.
