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BOOT CAMP 355 (07/12/04) -- XP TUNING TIPS
The next time you are
sitting in front of your computer, waiting what seems like an eternity for
Windows to boot up consider this. It is possible to get a Windows XP PC up and
running, ready for use, less than ten seconds after switching it on, and I’m not
talking about waking up from standby or hibernation mode, that’s booting from
cold!
I can’t promise you that
kind of blistering performance but with a little gentle tweaking and pruning it
is possible to get the average home desktop PC ready for action in well under a
minute. That’s within shouting distance of Microsoft’s wildly optimistic ‘Design
Goals’ for XP, which is for a PC to boot to a useable state in 30 seconds. If
your machine is now taking more than two or three minutes to boot then this
three-part tuning guide is definitely worth perusing.
As usual we’ll begin
with a few words of caution. The following tips apply to both the Home and Pro
versions of Windows XP and are generally safe to use but you try them entirely
at your own risk. Before you do anything to your PC make sure that all of your
essential and irreplaceable data (i.e. files that you have created that exist
only on your PC’s hard drive, such as documents, photographs, email messages
etc.) are safely backed up, preferably on removable media such as a CD-ROM. You
should also create a new Restore Point in System Restore (Start > Programs
> Accessories > System Tools -- see Boot Camp 334 in the Connected
Archive), so you can undo any changes.
Prior to making any
alterations it’s a good idea establish a benchmark by making a note of your
current boot-up time. This should be from the moment you press the on switch on
to the desktop hourglass disappearing or the hard disc activity light going off.
You will get a more accurate and consistent figure if, after implementing a
change, you ‘cold boot’. That means you should Turn Off the PC, rather than
Restart, count ten then switch back on. That’s because during a Restart some
background functions continue to operate and the changes you’ve made may not be
fully implemented. Only try one thing at a time and always make sure the PC is
behaving normally before you move on to the next tweak.
I’ve graded the tips in
three broad categories, for beginners, intermediate users and experts so don’t
please try anything that you feel is beyond your
capabilities.
We’ll start with a
couple of simple ones that involve disabling non-essential programs and services
that start automatically with Windows. On a cluttered or heavily used PC this
could shave ten to fifteen seconds off boot-up time.
Go to Start >
Programs >Startup; this folder contains shortcuts to programs that load with
Windows and you can afford to be ruthless. To remove the ones that you do not
need -- probably most of them -- simply right-click on the icon and select
Delete from the drop-down menu. Don’t worry the programs remain on your PC and
if you later decide that you need one or more of them back you can restore the
shortcut from the Recycle Bin (so don’t empty it for a
while!).
Most other programs that
launch with Windows are started from the Registry and you can easily control
those from the MS Configuration utility. Go to Run on the start menu, type
‘msconfig’ (without the quotes) and select the Startup tab. Here you will find a
long list of programs and services and possibly one or two nasties, like adware,
spyware, trojans and even viruses. You should be able to identify essential
applications like your virus checker, firewall and so on from the file names, so
leave those alone, the others you can check on the very extensive list at:
www.sysinfo.org/startuplist.php.
Most entries in Startup
are completely redundant, they slow down your PC, sap its resources and filch
your Internet connection to search for updates or send information from your PC.
If you come across any ‘malware’ entries run the AdAware and Spybot cleaner
utilities (both free, from: www.lavasoftusa.com and www.safer-networking.org/), before you go any
further.
Only uncheck a couple of items at a time and follow the
prompts for a restart. After each reboot you will see a dialogue box telling you
the PC is in diagnostic mode; click the ‘Don’t show me this again…’ box then OK
and make sure everything is working properly. You can then run msconfig again to
remove the next batch of entries. For the record my work PC now has only 5
startup items ticked; you should be able to reduce yours to 10 or fewer without
any problems.
Here’s another quick and
simple tweak that could reduce boot times by a few seconds. Open Windows
Explorer and work your way to C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch. The pre-fetch folder contains
files that XP thinks that it may need to reduce the time that applications open
or to start background processes. Some of them might be useful but a lot of
entries will have been left behind by programs that you only use occasionally or
have uninstalled. You can safely delete them all and over time Windows will
rebuild the list, so it’s a good idea to clean it out once a month or so.
Alternatively you can download a freeware utility that will do the job for you
with a single mouse click. It’s called Prefetch Clean and Control and you can
get it from: www.majorgeeks.com/download2495.html.
Next week – XP Tuning Tips, part 2
JARGON FILTER
MALWARE
Malicious or intrusive software, often inadvertently
downloaded from websites, that make adverts appear, track your on-line
activities or send private and personal information from your PC
SERVICES
Behind the scenes housekeeping and administrative functions
in Windows
TROJAN
Hidden program, often carried in an email attachments that
allows a hacker to gain access to files stored on your PC
TIP OF THE WEEK
This quick tip will only save a couple of seconds by
disabling the Windows XP ‘splash screen’ that appears during boot up but every
little helps! Go to Run on the Start menu and type’msconfig’ (without the
quotes) and select the BOOT.INI tab. In the lower half of the box, under Boot
Options check the item /NOGUIBOOT, click OK, Restart your PC and work out what
you are going to do with all of those extra seconds you have just saved…
NEXT
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