Speed Up Your Computer's Startup Time

[landbeforetimelover]

Just one.

If windows protection wasn't there, you'd be screwed!

[landbeforetimelover]

If you had actually deleted that file, I beleive that it's associated with the operating system so yeah.  That's why you'd be screwed.

[pokeplayer984]

LBTlover, you are a computer nut! :huh: But that's why we love you! :^.^:

My computer is pretty fast as is, and gets it started in less than 30 seconds.  If it ever gets to being more than 1 minute, I'll make sure to try these out.

Until then, I don't have much use for these methods.

[Petrie.]

Man you guys nitpick when most computers today can easily handle fonts.  :  I have whatever came with my computer and Microsoft Office.  Most computers these days, even barebone machines are going to be able to handle fonts...its the OS that slows them down.    Startup sounds taking a ton of ram and hurting a computer?  You've got to be kidding me....I've been doing that since 95 without losing a hard drive and major problems....


Some of this advice is good (startup folder, registry scans) but some of it in my opinion is just like "why????"  :unsure:

[landbeforetimelover]

Startup sounds taking a ton of ram and hurting a computer? You've got to be kidding me....

Appearantly, there's been some sort of misunderstanding.  Startup sounds don't hurt your computer.  They're made to do it.  It's when ya start screwing around with msconfig and ya don't know what you're doing that your life turns to crap.

Man you guys nitpick when most computers today can easily handle fonts.  I have whatever came with my computer and Microsoft Office. Most computers these days, even barebone machines are going to be able to handle fonts...its the OS that slows them down

Actually, the OS has to load the fonts for like the start button and all your icons and stuff.  It has to read the fonts folder.  If ya have too many fonts in there, the computer slows down cuz it has to process all of those fonts that are in your font folder just to load three of four of them.  I guess you've never had this problem before. <_<

[landbeforetimelover]

I've been doing that since 95 without losing a hard drive and major problems....

well that makes sense.  Ya acutally know what the heck you're doing!

[Petrie.]

For the heck of it I went and checked, and I tip the scales at 432 fonts installed and no sluggish problems.

You'd do better to keep a clean registry and defragged harddrive.

[landbeforetimelover]

For the heck of it I went and checked, and I tip the scales at 432 fonts installed and no sluggish problems

Well, if you have like 4ghz, then this wouldn't really help ya much.  I bet if you got rid of a couple hundred, you would still see some improvement in preformance.  It has always worked for me.

You'd do better to keep a clean registry and defragged harddrive

That's good advice for us all.

[landbeforetimelover]

Okay.  Another tip.  If you have an older computer system and you have Norton antivirus, remove it.  It takes a lot out of older computers.  Use avg instead.  I would recommend avg anyway, but what the heck.  If you wanna spend $60 a year for norton when you can get better service for free, that's your choice.

[DarkHououmon]

I honestly have a hard time believing one could get better survive for free.

[landbeforetimelover]

I honestly have a hard time believing one could get better survive for free.

Well, it's true.  AVG only survives cuz most people buy the full version.  They make the free version incredibly difficult to find unless you actuall type in "avg frre" into google.  See what I mean.  Go to www.grisoft.com and try to locate AVG free there.  It's almost impossible!  They want you to buy the full version and they keep the free version as hard to find as possible.  Why they offer this for free, I don't know, but I'm sure glad they do!

[Megatoph]

to tell the truth. I find the Norton security virus program to be a waist of memory. (Depending on what you use your computer for) I simply removed it and it works alot faster then it did in the past. also it helped with booting time. it used to take two friggin hours just to load when Norton was on but now that it was removed it works exelently. and I have more room to store my favorite pictures.

[landbeforetimelover]

to tell the truth. I find the Norton security virus program to be a waist of memory. (Depending on what you use your computer for) I simply removed it and it works alot faster then it did in the past.

Me too.  Computers usually work faster without norton slowing them down. <_<

[Megatoph]

yeah. plus after a few months it becomes out-of-date and they expect you to buy a newer version of it.

[landbeforetimelover]

yeah. plus after a few months it becomes out-of-date and they expect you to buy a newer version of it.

Bottom Line:  stay away from norton and mcaffee.  Mcaffee is pretty bad, but norton is the ultimate worst.  They sometimes even want you to pay per virus you want to get rid of.  The best antivirus system in the world currently is stop sign.  they charge you about $70 per virus removed though so it really isn't worth it.  AVG is the most complete, secure, comprehensive, and trustworthy antivirus system I've ever seen.  And the best thing is that it's free!  It's resistance shield is awesome.  It'll block just about any virus from penetrating your system so you don't even get the virus.  It automatically updates itself and you can set it to run at a certain time of the day in the background.  They have an excellent virus dictionary so you can see if the virus you had was the problem.  For example, if your files started being moved to weird locations, you would scan for a virus and it would detect somthing like trojan 82.  You would remove it and then look it up and discover that it randomly moves files around.  This is handy so ya don't have to run a disk check.

[landbeforetimelover]

Another tip.  If you don't scan your hard disk for errors at least once a week, you're not doing it right.  I'm not talking about defrag or virus check.  I'm talking having the computer restart and go into the blue screen and physically check the disk surface for read/write errors.  Here's how you do it:

double click the my computer icon

right click the hard disk you want to check (usually drive C)

go to properties

Click on the tools tab

click the check disk for errors button that says "check now"

Check both boxes and click start

when the little notice comes up, just click yes.

click okay to get out of the properties box

close all programs and restart the computer

when the computer starts up, it does it's little windows xp thing and then it goes to the blue screen.  Just walk away cuz it's gonna take from 1-17 hours depending on the size of your hard disk and the ratio of data to free space.

This program is a life saver.  It'll fix just about any error.  I hope this helps someone here.

[Megatoph]

also Norton also gave me so many problems when I tried to run a game online. it drove me bonkers!

[landbeforetimelover]

Here's another tip:

If you go into msconfig, you'll see a services tab.  Click it and then check "hide all microsoft services".  That'll get ya everything you've personally put onto your computer and what's starting up automatically with your computer.  Many people have crap such as messenger automatically starting with their computer.  WHY???  Unless that's all you use your computer for, there's no reason to have it booting MSN every time you startup. : This is also a good way to check for spyware and other unwanted applications.  Most  malicious software will appear here, but some of them don't.  Just look up what the service is on google if you don't know what it's supposed to do.  A good site to look up what the services do is www.castlecops.com.  They don't have a search function so just go into google and type something like "adobe LM service castle cops" into google.  Getting rid of all but microsoft applications is not recommended because some printers and other devices require a program at startup to work.  Basically, if you see something you obviously don't need, get rid of it.  It'll save you loads of startup time.




Here is an example of what adobe LM service is:

http://www.castlecops.com/o23list-23.html

As you can see, it's rated L for legitimate and it's required by photoshop.  It's harmless.


Here's something I can get rid of.  Windows live setup service. :

http://www.castlecops.com/o23list-2886.html

It's for compiling blogs for christs sake.


If you remove all unnecessary items from the services and startup tabs, you'll see a great decrease in startup time.  This test computer has a 2.4ghz processor, 2gb of ram, and a 120gb hard drive.  It's been crammed full of crap for years now.  It used to take nearly 6 minutes to boot, but after doing all this stuff to it that's been discussed in this thread, the startup time is less than 25 seconds without having to wipe the thing!

[Petrie.]

There's a program called Easy Cleaner that can do that as well, as well as many other things.  That's been my savior.

http://personal.inet.fi/business/toniarts/ecleane.htm