How to Make Windows Start Up Faster
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.
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
In Windows Vista, select
XP users should now select
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
If an autoloader diet doesn't sufficiently accelerate your boot-up, try these tweaks:
Lincoln Spector
