Where does one find "bootvis"?

[DBF]

I keep seeing references to "bootvis" but every attempt to find it is
failing.
So from where does one download it?
Thanks,
Dave

 

[Paul B T Hodges]

Its a micorsoft tool, but for some reason they removed it, you can get it
here,

http://www.softpedia.com/public/cat/12/2/12-2-1.shtml

Paul

 

[DBF]

Anywhere else?
For some reason I am having a difficult time with their website. When you
click "download" it goes back to the same page, and when I try to register
it doesn't like my education level. (Keeps giving me an error message for a
correctly filled out form.)
Thanks,
Dave

 

[Paul B T Hodges]

I just tried it and it does work, it doesn;t like it if you have a firewall
and cookies are being blocked.

Paul

 

[Jason Haynes]

I found it at www.majorgeeks.com. Go there and run a search for it.

 

[Sean Dwyer [MSFT]]

For questions about bootvis.exe please visit this site.
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/hwdev/platform/performance/fastboot/default.mspx

--
Sean Dwyer, MCSE
Platform Server Setup Group

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Please reply to the Group only, This address cannot receive incoming
messages.

 

[Paul B T Hodges]

The performance optimization thats built in to xp only runs every so often,
the general consensus seems to be about once every 3 days. Bootvis can force
the optimization to run immediately but you don't need it, you can run the
command

rundll32 advapi32 ProcessIdleTasks

However, I find it useful, if a boot is slow, to be able to view the trace,
to see where the problem lies.
It also lets you measure exactly how effective the boot optimisation
actually is by comparing before and after tracelogs, and also allows you to
measure the effectiveness of 3rd party defragmentation tools on boot times.

I like it.

Paul

 

[DBF]

Actually, I appreciate that link. Unfortunately it tells very little about
"bootvis.exe" except that it is no longer available through Microsoft.
I did appreciate the listed times for boot, return from hibernate and return
from standby.
I am curious however, if someone has a thought on how long it should take to
restart, i.e. from the time you press the restart button until the time you
can actually launch an application. Because one of the things that I hate
about XP is how long it takes to Shutdown.
Thanks,
Dave

 

[DBF]

Nope, majorgeeks has not found on search for bootvis.

 

[DBF]

Nevermind - turns out they have it, but it doesn't search as "bootvis"; you
have to enter "boot" and then scroll down to find it. Not a good search
engine, but at least I finally found it.
Thanks,
Dave

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, DBF.

Part of our boot time, of course, has nothing to do with Windows. My
computer, for example, takes over 3 minutes, but over 2 minutes of that is
before it ever begins to load WinXP. It has to load my SCSI host adapter
BIOS, then find and start my SCSI drive, which is the boot device. Then it
has to load the software for my RAID controller and find the HDs hooked to
that. Even after WinXP itself loads, it takes several more seconds to load
a couple of extra toolbars (ATI Multimedia Console and Office Shortcut Bar),
a couple dozen icons, plus my antivirus programs and other startup stuff.

I don't like the long delay, but I recognize that most of it is my own
doing. It's not WinXP's fault. I could strip WinXP down to the essentials
and get a faster load time, but then I'd have to manually load the toolbars
and other things that I need or want available.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP

 

[Paul B T Hodges]

Absolutely.

SCSI devices do take a long time to load and slow down the boot process.

I've got an adaptec 29160 controller in one system, which doesn't currently
have any disks connected to it. Apart from the time it takes to size its
buses during the bios post, this actually adds 6 seconds to the disk init
time, as measured by bootvis.
This would appear to be a problem with xp, especially if you're seeing the
same thing with a RAID controller. The whole idea I thought was to load
drivers in parallel to speed up the boot process, however the disk
ininitialisation stage appears to wait for all disk to initialize before
proceeding with the driver and prefetch stage. If it was working optimally
it would proceed once the boot device had initialised. It should know the
boot device from interrogating the bios.
With the scsi controller disabled in device manager, the disk init stage is
under half a second.

Paul