Richard Moreno said:
Hi Catherine-
Dependant on your hardware specs bootup times will definitely vary. While
the min. req. by MS are posted here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/professional/evaluation/sysreqs/redir-sysreqs.asp
Anyone whose dealt with W2K will tell you that's just enough to get started.
In my experience it runs optimally on:
P3 400 or better
256 MB RAM (the more the better but this is minimum)
10 GB HDD (1 GB free)
Other than that, W2K has alot to load during bootup. You could try
minimizing the amount of services you have starting during bootup as well.
Also, check into your Armada's BIOS. Make sure you've got the latest.
--
Thanks,
Richard Moreno
MCSE, MCSA, Server+, Network+
*This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights.
Greetings Comrades,
Huh, a 10GB HDD is going to cause W2K to boot up faster than, say a 5GB
HDD? Oh, what rubbish!
Here's what I'd do:
Make sure that you only have the minimum number of services running. Fast
Indexing (what a joke) can greatly slow a computer down.
Some anti-virus programs can also greatly slow down a computer when they're
running in full scan mode. Disable the full-scan mode for the time being.
Make sure that you've run your computer through SpyBot and Adaware (free)
to get rid of any parasites. Before running the programs, make sure you've
downloaded the latest definition files. Parasites, and it doesn't take too
many, can cripple your computer.
Get Startup.exe (
http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml) -- free. Disable as
many processes as possible. If you're starting 15 additional programs, of
course it's going to take forever to boot up your computer. startup.exe is a
great program. You simply uncheck the processes you don't want to start and
if it turns out to be necessary, you just check it again. Very painless.
Uncheck as many processes as possible.
If you can afford it, max out your laptop memory to 512MB. This almost
always has the greatest return on investment. My old 433MHz desktop
computer with lots of memory and a fast hard disk is now quite spunky. It
boots up W2K quite quickly. It used to be a real dog until I added a lot
more memory.
Erase your temp directories. (I remove the entire directory.) I've come
across some users whose temp directories were positively huge. 100's of MB.
Since W2K and some applications need the temp dir's, reboot the computer
afterwards and the temp dir's will be automatically rebuilt.
Updating your BIOS is never a bad idea, but I'll bet my puppy it won't have
any effect upon your bootup performance.
Then defrag your hard disk. This is not a bad idea (I do it all the time),
but it won't give you the dramatic performance gain that many would lead you
to believe.
Uncle Joe
