Tip #2: Speeding Up Windows XP Boot Time
After a while of use, (weeks or months), your Windows XP install may seem to boot up a little more slowly than it did when it was new or freshly reloaded... The following 3-part tip will show you how to speed up your boot time, and get your machine back to it's faster booting old self...
Step 1: Cleaning the Registry
The first thing you should do is scan your registry for errors or references to files that are no longer there... After installing/uninstalling numerous applications, some may leave remnants behind in the registry and slow down your boot time...
As always, anytime you are doing anything with your registry, you should back it up... To back up your registry, simply click on Start/Run/regedit, and then select File/Export from the menu bar... Make certain that the "Export Range" at the bottom of the Export Registry File window is checked on "All", then select a filename to save your registry to... A good choice is the date you're backing it up, (i.e. 2006-06-29.reg)...
Once you have backed up your registry, you are now ready to clean it... The program that I use is EasyCleaner from ToniArts, as I have found it be the most reliable...
Assuming you have downloaded and installed EasyCleaner, launch the application and click on the Registry button in the upper left corner of the application, then click on the Find button... The application will now search your registry and display a list of all the errors it encountered... After it has completed scanning, click on the Delete All button to remove these entries from your registry...
Exit the application and reboot your machine... You should notice it booting slightly faster if you had numerous registry errors removed...
Step 2: Cleaning the Prefetch Directory
Windows XP uses a directory where it stores "prefetch" information for the executable files on your machine... These prefetch files help to speed up the launch time of individual applications.... The problem is that over time, the prefetch directory builds up entries for files which no longer exist, or which are infrequently used...
Removing the prefetch files is a simple task... Simply click on Start/Run then type "prefetch" and hit ENTER... This will display a listing of all the files in your prefetch directory...
To delete these files, simply select Edit/Select All from the menu bar, and then press the Delete key... Answer "Yes" to the "Are you sure..." prompt... (Make certain you are in the prefetch directory before doing this!!!)
Now reboot again...
Step 3: Defragmenting Boot Files
If the boot files for your machine become fragmented over time, it will affect the boot time... To defragment the boot files, perform the following steps:
Open a command prompt by clicking on Start/Run/cmd and pressing ENTER...
You can now defragment the boot files by using an undocumented switch for the defrag.exe application, as follows:
defrag -b c:
This command will defragment only the boot files on your PC, and should only take under a minute...
After the command completes, go ahead and reboot your machine one more time...
Summary:
Following these steps should help to decrease the amount of time it takes for your XP machine to boot up... Please ensure that you have your registry backed up prior to following these steps... And always back up your data...
Please leave comments if you have any ?'s...
Until next time...
Step 1: Cleaning the Registry
The first thing you should do is scan your registry for errors or references to files that are no longer there... After installing/uninstalling numerous applications, some may leave remnants behind in the registry and slow down your boot time...
As always, anytime you are doing anything with your registry, you should back it up... To back up your registry, simply click on Start/Run/regedit, and then select File/Export from the menu bar... Make certain that the "Export Range" at the bottom of the Export Registry File window is checked on "All", then select a filename to save your registry to... A good choice is the date you're backing it up, (i.e. 2006-06-29.reg)...
Once you have backed up your registry, you are now ready to clean it... The program that I use is EasyCleaner from ToniArts, as I have found it be the most reliable...
Assuming you have downloaded and installed EasyCleaner, launch the application and click on the Registry button in the upper left corner of the application, then click on the Find button... The application will now search your registry and display a list of all the errors it encountered... After it has completed scanning, click on the Delete All button to remove these entries from your registry...
Exit the application and reboot your machine... You should notice it booting slightly faster if you had numerous registry errors removed...
Step 2: Cleaning the Prefetch Directory
Windows XP uses a directory where it stores "prefetch" information for the executable files on your machine... These prefetch files help to speed up the launch time of individual applications.... The problem is that over time, the prefetch directory builds up entries for files which no longer exist, or which are infrequently used...
Removing the prefetch files is a simple task... Simply click on Start/Run then type "prefetch" and hit ENTER... This will display a listing of all the files in your prefetch directory...
To delete these files, simply select Edit/Select All from the menu bar, and then press the Delete key... Answer "Yes" to the "Are you sure..." prompt... (Make certain you are in the prefetch directory before doing this!!!)
Now reboot again...
Step 3: Defragmenting Boot Files
If the boot files for your machine become fragmented over time, it will affect the boot time... To defragment the boot files, perform the following steps:
Open a command prompt by clicking on Start/Run/cmd and pressing ENTER...
You can now defragment the boot files by using an undocumented switch for the defrag.exe application, as follows:
defrag -b c:
This command will defragment only the boot files on your PC, and should only take under a minute...
After the command completes, go ahead and reboot your machine one more time...
Summary:
Following these steps should help to decrease the amount of time it takes for your XP machine to boot up... Please ensure that you have your registry backed up prior to following these steps... And always back up your data...
Please leave comments if you have any ?'s...
Until next time...
posted by Jameser @ 5:03 PM
2 Comments:
At 8/16/2006 5:59 PM,
Anonymous said…
nice thx
At 12/10/2006 6:39 PM,
Anonymous said…
Clear concise, and logical.
I have done all the steps.
(your 'heads up' on reg bkup, to select all was great.)
I am still having my problem, but I am sure your advice could only be beneficial (I feel better having done them).
I have XP Pro SP1 (old pc), and last night my avg email scanner went mad, and kept trying to reconnect. I presume that my adsl provider rebooted their server in the wee hours, and somehow triggered whatever else went wrong.
I couldn't get XP to close, so had to use off switch. Ever since then it freezes on startup. If I tap away on the enter key (and perhaps Caps lock), I get it's attention, and it gets through the boot ok.
Ah, such is life!
Thank for your generous advice, I am sure it will help many users.
Rob
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