Windows Booting problems part 1
I don’t know about you, but I love spending the first 10 minutes of every workday watching Windows start up. It’s like a Zen thing. If you’d rather get right to work, though, the following tips should help you make Windows start much more quickly.
A typical PC loads a lot of programs every time it starts. Each of the icons in your system tray (the area near your clock) represents an auto-start application. And there are probably other programs on your machine that start automatically but don’t make their presence known so easily. Each autoloading app slows your boot time–a little or a lot. And because most of them continue to run in the background, they rob you of a little performance.
Before you start eliminating autoloaders, though, make sure you can undo your changes. In Windows XP, Select Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, System Restore. Select Create a restore point, click Next, call your restore point something like before removing autoloaders, and choose Create. Click Close once you’ve created the restore point.
In Windows Vista, select Start, Control Panel, System. Under ‘Tasks’ on the right side of the window, click System Protection. In the System Properties box that comes up, click Create at the bottom of the window.
XP users should now select Start, Run, type msconfig, and press <Enter>. (In Vista, select Start, type msconfig into the Search box, and press <Enter>.) Click the Startup tab, and you’ll see a list of all your autoloading programs, each with a check box. Uncheck an item, and it will no longer load at startup.
