Simple tips to cut your start-up time in half. By Matt Hanson
Published on 26 Nov 2009
The time it takes for your computer to start up and run has been massively improved under Windows Vista. One of the reasons older versions of Windows, such as Windows 95 and Windows 98, took so long to boot up was because those versions of Windows were running on top of another operating system – MSDOS.
With Windows Vista this is no longer the case, so start-up times are a lot faster. If you have a brand new computer or a fresh installation of Windows Vista, it will take no time at all for your PC to start up, so you can begin using your favourite programs at once. Unfortunately, after a while, with the more programs you install and the more files you have on your PC, you may begin to
notice that your computer takes longer and longer to start up. Before you know it, you’ll be able to get up, make a cup of tea and drink it while waiting for Windows Vista to load. When things get this bad, you know you have to do something about it.
We recently asked visitors to the Windows Vista magazine website how long it took for their PCs to start. The results varied from less than a minute to over ten!
There are plenty of factors that could make your PC startup grind to a halt, so there are plenty of tweaks to try to get your PC starting up in a flash. It's all very well listing these tweaks, but do they work?
We have a PC at home packed with so much stuff that it takes an age to load Windows Vista, so we decided to test the tweaks to find out how much time we could save.
First things first - Start-up slow-down
Original startup time
We knew that our PC was slow to start, but when we timed it and saw that it took nearly six and a half minutes from the moment we pressed the on button to when the computer had loaded all the start-up programs and was actually usable, we knew that something needed to be done.
Our first port of call was to check out the Startup folder by going to Start > All Programs > Startup. The Startup folder can be a really useful feature of Windows Vista because you can place shortcuts to your favourite programs in there and they will load up when Windows Vista starts.
CUT IT OUT: You can speed up the boot time by removing items from your Startup folder
The problem is, if there are too many programs in there, it will slow down your computer's startup as your computer loads them all. Deleting the shortcuts from this folder (don't worry, it won't delete the actual programs) will certainly help speed things up. Not all programs that load themselves when your computer starts appear in the Startup folder, however.
Take a look at the Notification area of your Taskbar, which is on the bottom right-hand corner of your desktop next to the clock, to see if there are a lot of icons there. Most of these icons are for programs that run in background, and with all of them starting up when you turn on your computer, it will definitely slow it down.
Many of these programs can be safely prevented from starting up automatically, so you only load them as and when you need to. Most of the time you can right-click the icon and either open the program or go straight to the program's options or preferences, and from there clear a box that says something like 'Run this program when Windows starts'.
If there are any programs that you don't need any more at all, go ahead and uninstall them to get an extra speed boost.
Result: After deleting four shortcuts from the Startup folder and cutting down the Notification icons from a massive 19 down to seven, we saw a huge improvement in the computer's start-up speed.
Going in deeper
Not all programs give the option to prevent them from automatically starting up. To disable more stubborn programs, we went in to the powerful Msconfig utility. Before using this you should create a Restore point so you can revert your PC back to its former settings should anything go wrong.
Click Start and type msconfig. Click the Startup tab and you'll see a list of programs, the name of the manufacturer of each program, and the program's path (where it's kept on your hard drive). Using all this information you can tell whether these programs are essential to making your PC run properly.
As a general rule, don't disable any programs from Microsoft because these are usually vital for Windows Vista. Any drivers or programs related to your graphics card and other hardware should be left alone as well. Once you've disabled the programs you want, exit Msconfig and restart your PC.
If there are any problems or error messages, make a note and go back into Msconfig and check the boxes of the problem programs. You can also stop some services running on startup. Only stop them if you're sure that you don't need them. Again, no Microsoft services should be turned off.
If there are any services you want to stop, it's a good idea to search for the service on the internet to make sure it's okay to do so. Once again, if there are any problems, open Msconfig again and restart the services.
Use Msconfig to disable more programs at startup
1 LAUNCH MSCONFIG Msconfig is a powerful application that’s usually only used by advanced computer users. This is why it doesn’t have a snazzy name, and why you won’t find it in the Start Menu. To launch it click Start and type msconfig into the search box.
2 TICK THE BOXES Click the Startup tab and then in the Startup Item column clear the boxes of the programs you wish to prevent from loading on startup. Be careful which programs you deselect, however..
3 RESTART YOUR PC For these changes to take effect you’ll need to restart your PC. Make sure you have saved all your work, and then click Restart. This is a good opportunity to examine the improvements that your changes have made so far.
Result: We found a number of programs that didn't need to load on startup, so we unchecked them. We also found a couple of services that ran on startup that were used by old programs we had long ago uninstalled, so we safely stopped them.
No comments:
Post a Comment