Slow boots and low resources
This page was originally built with Win98 in mind. But many
aspects of it still apply to XP so read on....
If you are concerned about the low level of system resources available to you
and the slow boot speed of your PC, many of the problems can be due to the
number of programs which are loaded and run when the system starts up. You can
start by making sure that Win98 does not look for a new floppy every boot
sequence: to do this, simultaneously press the Window
key and Pause|Break which will give you the System Properties
page. Select the Performance tab then File Sytem...
then the Floppy Disk tab. Deselect "Search for new floppy disk drive..."
and OK your way out. We'll look at other boot options at the end.
Now select Start / Run... then type
msconfig and hit Enter.
In an effort to clarify what these programs are and whether they are necessary,
review the list at the Startup tab. Programs are colour-coded to aid in
determining whether they are necessary.
An excellent source of information on startup items is
Pacman's Portal and another
great one at
AnswersThatWork
In the event you have an entry which is not listed here, try a search on
Google
Note that if you uncheck any items on the Startup tab you will receive a warning
when booting up that you are in Selective Startup mode for troubleshooting. This
is perfectly normal - any time you modify Startup you are put into Selective
Startup. Merely check the box to tell Windows not to display that warning in the
future.
There are some entries in msconfig
which are unique to laptops. Laptop users can find information on these items
here.
Further items may be started from the Registry. You can edit these items through
regedit
in the same way you used msconfig but be aware that all registry editing
is done live and cannot easily be undone. [Before you edit the registry, make
sure you understand how to restore it if a problem occurs. For information about
how to do this, view the "Restoring the Registry" Help topic in Regedit.exe or
the "Restoring a Registry Key" Help topic in Regedt32.exe]. Particularly look at
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServices
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServicesOnce
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce
Before we finish, let's look at a couple of tweaks that can be made in the BIOS.
BIOS may seem like black magic but it's all pretty straight forward; what we are
going to do is stop the BIOS looking for the number of tracks on floppies, stop
it checking all its resources and make it boot straight from the hard drive. All
BIOSes are slightly different, so you'll have to find your own way but if you
feel that you're lost, press F10 and Exit without Saving Changes! To
access the BIOS, turn the PC off then on again, after the video card RAM count
and beep as the splash screen comes up, the BIOS can be accessed by (usually)
pressing DEL. From this point you are looking for a menu entitled Boot
or Advanced usually. Navigation is usually by the arrow keys and Enter
with Esc backing you out. Look for Boot up Floppy Seek, select it by
pressing Enter, toggle the option to Disabled, Enter again. Now
look for Quick POST, this time make sure than it is Enabled. Finally look
for Boot Sequence and Floppy Setup; this allows you to set the sequence for
booting - I'd recommend first the hard drive then the CD-ROM
and disable the rest. If you need to boot from the floppy (to use Norton
Recovery or Ghost for example) you'll need to reset the BIOS. This info is
derived from many sources!!