[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Why the Slow Boots? here

[lutra]

Great advice, this is something that I'm often asked about at work and by my friends and family. Every time I load a program onto their computer called ccleaner, not only because it puts a lot of the things you need in one easy place rather than navigating through a maze of menus, but it's also free and simple to use.

After turning off a few programs they don't need to have running at startup, cleaning out a ton of files (I once freed up 6400MB on a family member's computer with rubbish files alone), and using their registry cleanup tool (I always suggest making a restore point and backing up your registry which the program will do for you) their computers are running back at normal speeds.

Of course, you could always do the dramatic thing and reinstall Windows on your machine. That actually works wonders, though it takes a bit to back up all the files and reinstall things afterward.

This post has been edited by lutra: 07 September 2009 - 07:32 AM

[WinTard]

Good article. I never understood why load all these useless programs at startup? If an application is required, why not simply click on it?

In addition to msconfig, I also use CCleaner and Autoruns. Awesome free utilities! A must have! Autoruns is for the pros and extremely detailed. Also works great on Windows 7.

~~~~~~~~~~
Born to be wild - live to outgrow it.
~ Lao Tzu

Youth is a circumstance you can't do anything about. The trick is to grow up without getting old.
~ Frank Lloyd Wright, 1867-1959, American Architect

A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.
~ Albert Einstein

[dk3d]

Defragmentation overtime can also cause slow downs in boot up. As more and more stuff is installed and run, the programs that actually start up the program get more and more scattered around the drive and broken into smaller pieces. The physical drive is thus forced to grab a piece here, then there, then back here, then over there and so.

Defrag programs that can optimize the bootup/statup files and place them altogether and close to the MFT (master file table) can do wonders.

Two of the best: DefragExpress by Distrix. Manual defrag only but does a great job or re-ordering files, especially most used and boot time files.

Diskkeep Pro Premier. Background degrag that automatically defrags without ever really having to do a manual defrag.

I also use CCleaner (someone mentioned about) prior to doing a defrag. You'd be surprised how much garbage collects even in a "no cache" or minimum cache browser environment for IE and Firefox (and Chrome is a temp file hog as well).

A little over a year later my laptop still takes less than 40 seconds from a cold off state bootup, to up and running with a browser and letting me access my Gmail. That's pretty darn fast.

[WinTard]

Although I've used Win7 x64 RTM for less than a month now, in production mode, it boots in 13 seconds flat to the login screen (+ 6 secs POST). Win7 has a built-in scheduled defragmenter. Also resumes from suspend in less than 1 second. I'm pretty happy. And can also state Win7 never crashed on me (yet) since the beta 7000 on Jan 13th 2009. Mind you I keep the autostart programs to a minimum, and always remove stuff like java and Adobe reader autostart from the startup... I basically keep it clean.

Oh, wait, I'm watching on TV a stupid Mac vs. PC ad again! ROTFLMAO! Not again? Apple must be hurting! On Space channel no less!

Bing: 1-10 of 971,000 results stupid mac vs pc ad

Give us a break!

~~~~~~~~~~
The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is.
~ Winston Churchill

[TechieXP]

WinTard, on 07 September 2009 - 12:47 PM, said:

Good article. I never understood why load all these useless programs at startup? If an application is required, why not simply click on it?

In addition to msconfig, I also use CCleaner and Autoruns. Awesome free utilities! A must have! Autoruns is for the pros and extremely detailed. Also works great on Windows 7.

~~~~~~~~~~
Born to be wild - live to outgrow it.
~ Lao Tzu

Youth is a circumstance you can't do anything about. The trick is to grow up without getting old.
~ Frank Lloyd Wright, 1867-1959, American Architect

A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.
~ Albert Einstein

I agree. With todays systems...having applications that preload into memory to help them load faster isn't really a benefit. As todays systems are fast enough to launch appz in the same amount of time for the most part. The last vendor system I bought (ASUS) wasn't preloaded with a lot of junk like Dell and HP tend to be.

I too use CCLeaner and I use to use Diskeeper or O&O Defrag. However I switched over to PerfectDisk and it seems to work a bit better. I like O&O bec it offered several defrag routines. And these are performance issues that are not plaqued only to Windows. Mac's have folders that store internet cache and system cache as well. And Macs work like Windows, where appz are loaded itno memory and then when done it is off-loaded to whatever empty space that passes the read/wrote heads of the drive. However the file system on the Mac doesn't seem to get plaqued as fast with defragged files like Windows does. Probabaly bec of the security measures Windows employs that OSX does not. Performance appz like Tweak Vista and TweakXP allow you to make changes in the registry that tells Windows not to do certain things with files to make them faster. Like not timestamping certain files all the time.

[KStrawn]

Linux always boots in seconds. Not to mention very few viruses. And that is exactly why I wiped out both my Windows operating systems running side-by-side (Windows Vista/7) with Linux Mint 7. It first came about when Internet Explorer was performing very slowly, and tabs/webpages were timing out and coming up "Internet Explorer Cannot Display The Webpage" on both partitions. I installed my sitting-on-shelf Kaspersky Anti-Virus to try and fix the problem, only for core components of the anti-virus to fail to start once the software was activated. And yes, I found out it was because of the "hyped-about" IIS flaw. I enabled IIS and installed Remote Desktop Web Connection (bad idea!) and when I tried to kill the IIS process in Task Manager, more instances would come up, so I disabled IIS, but still no performance increase. Finally, I made the decision to install Linux Mint 7, "Using the Entire Disk", effectively wiping out Windows altogether, on both partitions. It formatted the entire hard drive, and yes, I am happy with Mint 7. It picked up wireless networks from the LiveCD (no drivers needed for my Linksys WMP600N adapter!) and it also recognized my wirelessly networked HP Officejet Pro L7780 all-in-one printer with just a few clicks of the mouse (and also no drivers!) It installed drivers for my ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO graphics card automatically. The only device I had to configure manually was my TV Wonder 650 tuner, described here, look for the last post with my username. It is also the only post with a code snippet in it.

This post has been edited by KStrawn: 10 September 2009 - 11:56 PM

[Nuke61]

TechieXP, on 08 September 2009 - 09:00 AM, said:

However the file system on the Mac doesn't seem to get plaqued as fast with defragged files like Windows does. Probabaly bec of the security measures Windows employs that OSX does not.

I don't know what you mean when you talk about security measures that Windows employs that OS X doesn't, when talking about file system fragmentation, but HFS+ does the following:
When a file is opened on an HFS+ volume, the following conditions are tested
* If the file is less than 20 MB in size
* If the file is not already busy
* If the file is not read-only
* If the file has more than eight extents
* If the system has been up for at least three minutes
If all of the above conditions are satisfied, the file is relocated -- it is defragmented on-the-fly.

I forgot to add that the above is only applicable if you formatted using HFS+ with journaling turned on -- I think this is the default, but I'm not sure.

This post has been edited by Nuke61: 11 September 2009 - 12:28 AM

[edtrain5]

I've found a really useful, quick and FREE defrag program called MyDefrag.
It's a small program that builds on the basics of MS Defrag but gives you a visual showing progress, works infinitely faster than MS and orgainzes your hard drive into various sectors for rapid access.
Besides, the graphics give you something to do if you have time on your hands. LOL!!
Link = http://www.mydefrag.com/index.html

dk3d, on 07 September 2009 - 05:48 PM, said:

Defragmentation overtime can also cause slow downs in boot up. As more and more stuff is installed and run, the programs that actually start up the program get more and more scattered around the drive and broken into smaller pieces. The physical drive is thus forced to grab a piece here, then there, then back here, then over there and so.

Defrag programs that can optimize the bootup/statup files and place them altogether and close to the MFT (master file table) can do wonders.

Two of the best: DefragExpress by Distrix. Manual defrag only but does a great job or re-ordering files, especially most used and boot time files.

Diskkeep Pro Premier. Background degrag that automatically defrags without ever really having to do a manual defrag.

I also use CCleaner (someone mentioned about) prior to doing a defrag. You'd be surprised how much garbage collects even in a "no cache" or minimum cache browser environment for IE and Firefox (and Chrome is a temp file hog as well).

A little over a year later my laptop still takes less than 40 seconds from a cold off state bootup, to up and running with a browser and letting me access my Gmail. That's pretty darn fast.

[peggylenox1]

lutra, on 07 September 2009 - 07:28 AM, said:

Great advice, this is something that I'm often asked about at work and by my friends and family. Every time I load a program onto their computer called ccleaner, not only because it puts a lot of the things you need in one easy place rather than navigating through a maze of menus, but it's also free and simple to use.

After turning off a few programs they don't need to have running at startup, cleaning out a ton of files (I once freed up 6400MB on a family member's computer with rubbish files alone), and using their registry cleanup tool (I always suggest making a restore point and backing up your registry which the program will do for you) their computers are running back at normal speeds.

Of course, you could always do the dramatic thing and reinstall Windows on your machine. That actually works wonders, though it takes a bit to back up all the files and reinstall things afterward.

peggylenox1, on 19 September 2009 - 05:29 AM, said:

lutra, on 07 September 2009 - 07:28 AM, said:

Great advice, this is something that I'm often asked about at work and by my friends and family. Every time I load a program onto their computer called ccleaner, not only because it puts a lot of the things you need in one easy place rather than navigating through a maze of menus, but it's also free and simple to use.

After turning off a few programs they don't need to have running at startup, cleaning out a ton of files (I once freed up 6400MB on a family member's computer with rubbish files alone), and using their registry cleanup tool (I always suggest making a restore point and backing up your registry which the program will do for you) their computers are running back at normal speeds.

Of course, you could always do the dramatic thing and reinstall Windows on your machine. That actually works wonders, though it takes a bit to back up all the files and reinstall things afterward.

[peggylenox1]

[After turning off a few programs they don't need to have running at startup, cleaning out a ton of files (I once [that I'm often asked about at work and by my friends and family. Every time I load a program onto their computer called ccleaner, not only because it puts a lot of the things you need in one easy place rather than navigating through a maze of menus, but it's also free and simple to use.

But is is Really Free? I downloaded the program, ran it, and it said I had something like 800 things to fix. Then they asked me to register and offered me ccleaner free if I bought $37 worth of other programs. Please explain! Thanks. Peggy

[CyclePDX2023]

Wow, my almost 4 year old net book stated zooming again immediately after doing this! I thought I had to get a new one, whew! Thanks so much, great advice!

[CyclePDX2023]

I'm hoping I can find an answer to this. I did the above to help my computer run faster, which it did, but it also seems to have deleted my laptops wireless network all together. Also a couple keyboard/mouse pad issues. Any thoughts?