Windows XP - Boot Faster??
Hi guys,
I had a system with the following configuration:
OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2
System Manufacturer Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
System Model M61PME-S2
System Type X86-based PC
AMD Athlon Dual core processor
Processor x86 Family 15 Model 67 Stepping 3 AuthenticAMD ~2411 Mhz
Processor x86 Family 15 Model 67 Stepping 3 AuthenticAMD ~2410 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date Award Software International, Inc. F2, 3/7/2008
SMBIOS Version 2.4
Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS
System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Time Zone India Standard Time
Total Physical Memory 4,096.00 MB -- Kingston 2 x 2 GB 800 MHz
Available Physical Memory 2.52 GB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Page File Space 4.84 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys
HDD - Seagate SATA 160 GB
Sony DVDRW and Asus CDROM attached to IDE port
450W Power supply
I had recently assembled this system myself. The configuration is pretty self explanatory. The system is up and running smooth.
My only concern is the booting time. Apart from MS office 2003(Licensed) and Symantec Antivirus Corporate Edition(Licensed stand alone), there are no other softwares present in the system.From the moment the windows splash screen appears on the screen, it is taking 1 min 20 seconds until i see the complete desktop and all the HDD activity stop.
I think it should be much more faster (probably under less than a minute) and i suspect the antivirus to be the culprit as it may be taking more time.
I had done the following troubleshooting:
1) Disabled many unneeded services.
2) Removed all startup programs through msconfig (only 2 antivirus services are present).
3) Defragmented the drive (though really not necessary).
4) Turned off system restore.
5) Turned off all eye candy except windows xp theme.
6) Disabled windows firewall, automatic updates, security centre.
7) No background running programs except the antivirus.
8) No external devices.
9) Only one internal SATA HDD present.
10) Stand alone PC. Not in a network.
11) No startup sounds and no wallpaper.
12) All drivers are uptodate.
13) Disabled all boot up and memory scans in antivirus.
Can anybody suggest me what are the things i am missing here and what i can do to decrease the bootup time?
Thank you.
I had a system with the following configuration:
OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2
System Manufacturer Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
System Model M61PME-S2
System Type X86-based PC
AMD Athlon Dual core processor
Processor x86 Family 15 Model 67 Stepping 3 AuthenticAMD ~2411 Mhz
Processor x86 Family 15 Model 67 Stepping 3 AuthenticAMD ~2410 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date Award Software International, Inc. F2, 3/7/2008
SMBIOS Version 2.4
Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS
System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Time Zone India Standard Time
Total Physical Memory 4,096.00 MB -- Kingston 2 x 2 GB 800 MHz
Available Physical Memory 2.52 GB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Page File Space 4.84 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys
HDD - Seagate SATA 160 GB
Sony DVDRW and Asus CDROM attached to IDE port
450W Power supply
I had recently assembled this system myself. The configuration is pretty self explanatory. The system is up and running smooth.
My only concern is the booting time. Apart from MS office 2003(Licensed) and Symantec Antivirus Corporate Edition(Licensed stand alone), there are no other softwares present in the system.From the moment the windows splash screen appears on the screen, it is taking 1 min 20 seconds until i see the complete desktop and all the HDD activity stop.
I think it should be much more faster (probably under less than a minute) and i suspect the antivirus to be the culprit as it may be taking more time.
I had done the following troubleshooting:
1) Disabled many unneeded services.
2) Removed all startup programs through msconfig (only 2 antivirus services are present).
3) Defragmented the drive (though really not necessary).
4) Turned off system restore.
5) Turned off all eye candy except windows xp theme.
6) Disabled windows firewall, automatic updates, security centre.
7) No background running programs except the antivirus.
8) No external devices.
9) Only one internal SATA HDD present.
10) Stand alone PC. Not in a network.
11) No startup sounds and no wallpaper.
12) All drivers are uptodate.
13) Disabled all boot up and memory scans in antivirus.
Can anybody suggest me what are the things i am missing here and what i can do to decrease the bootup time?
Thank you.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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i think 1 minute 20 sec is a fair time.
if you want less, uninstall norton and test again
if you want less, uninstall norton and test again
if you want to get a faster boot time you are going to have to strip down your windows using nlite
http://lifehacker.com/374376/trim-down-windows-to-the-bare-essentials
this is a very good tutorial
other then this you can upgrade your system and buy a SSD hard drive and also upgrade other parts.
http://lifehacker.com/374376/trim-down-windows-to-the-bare-essentials
this is a very good tutorial
other then this you can upgrade your system and buy a SSD hard drive and also upgrade other parts.
or try bootvis : http://majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=664
bootvis has been suggested already.....
Also, this is probably one of the best sites to figure out what services you do and dont need....
www.BlackViper.com: Home Page
http://www.blackviper.com
Also, this is probably one of the best sites to figure out what services you do and dont need....
www.BlackViper.com: Home Page
http://www.blackviper.com
sorry john, overlooked it
NP. Im sure you owed me one at some point....
I wish MS supported this still, and did further development. Was not a very widley known tool, but always worked well....
I wish MS supported this still, and did further development. Was not a very widley known tool, but always worked well....
ASKER
I had tested the booting time without Norton and it is amazingly 45 seconds. So the culprit is the Symantec Antivirus which is taking time to load. I had checked the settings of Symantec and removed all the boot up scans but is there any way to speed it up?
ASKER
bootvis is able to bring down the bootup time to 1 minute 16 seconds with Symantec installed.
sorry missed this in my previous post. Thanks johnb6767. I know this tool but forgot it. This tool helped to some extent.
sorry missed this in my previous post. Thanks johnb6767. I know this tool but forgot it. This tool helped to some extent.
you can try uninstalling norton, and using AVG free instead; that should help also :
http://free.avg.com/
http://free.avg.com/
but i take it you dont want that
i came across a few help full sites:
http://www.pchell.com/support/how_to_speed_up_windows_boot_time.shtml
http://www.intelliadmin.com/blog/2006/09/why-windows-takes-so-long-to-start-up.html
also here is one usefull program
http://www.r2.com.au/software.php?page=2&show=startdelay
this could speed up the start time alot