Slow, slow boots

[Dan]

I'm running XP Professional on a Dell Dimension 2350 with 256mb Ram.
Peformance in generally pretty good, although sometimes it gets so slow I
have to reboot. And then when I reboot, it many times takes 5 minutes or
more just to shut down, and then another 5-10 minutes to come up, load all
the programs and drivers.

I assume that too much is loading at startup time. How do I change the
startup so that not so much loads during reboot? Many of the programs don't
need to load automatically anyway.

Thanks

 

[Guest]

I biggest part on my slow boot went away After installing more RAM, now at 512.
This might be the way to go, $ wise it is effective, then you mght see what
is running the still causes delays. Good luck.

 

[Ken Blake]

In

I assume that too much is loading at startup time. How do I
change
the startup so that not so much loads during reboot? Many of
the
programs don't need to load automatically anyway.

On each program you don't want to start automatically, check its
Options to see if it has the choice not to start. Many can easily
and best be stopped that way. If that doesn't work, run MSCONFIG
from the Start | Run line, and on the Startup tab, uncheck the
programs you don't want to start automatically.

However, if I were you, I wouldn't do this just for the purpose
of running the minimum number of programs. Despite what many
people tell you, you should be concerned, not with how many of
these programs you run, but which. Some of them can hurt
performance severely, but others have no effect on performance.

Don't just stop programs from running willy-nilly. What you
should do is determine what each program is, what its value is to
you, and what the cost in performance is of its running all the
time. You can get more information about these with at
http://castlecops.com/StartupList.html. If you can't find it
there, try google searches and ask about specifics here.

Once you have that information, you can make an intelligent
informed decision about what you want to keep and what you want
to get rid of.

 

[Dan]

Thanks Ken.

 

[Dan]

Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[Guest]

Spyware/Virus Removal and Prevention:
http://www.fixyourwindows.com/windowsxpsolutions.htm
(Links to online virus scans on the same page)

How to optimize Windows XP, 2000, ME
for the best performance (Step-by-step Visual Guide):
http://www.fixyourwindows.com

Good Luck!

 

[Ken Blake]

In

Thanks Ken.

You're welcome, Dan. Glad to help.