Speed Up Vista: Boost Start Up Time

One of the first things that you will notice about Vista is that it boots up much more slowly than Windows XP. When you boot up, it has even more processes and services that start up automatically and continue to run in the background, using up valuable system resources. Here’s how to tweak your Vista system to optimize startup.

By disabling auto-start for programs and services that are not critical to your system, you can reduce your startup time as well as improve system performance overall. In effect, disabling unnecessary startups prevents these programs from automatically launching when you boot up. See our step-by-step tips below to learn how.

Manage Your Startup Programs

Disable Unnecessary Services

The Vista Welcome Center that loads whenever you startup your computer is useful for users who want an easy, convenient method for PC configuration. Disabling the Welcome Center will help speed up your boot process. Here’s how:

1. Click on the Vista Start Orb.
2. Type Regedit into the Start Search box. Press Enter
3. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft \Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
4. Locate and right click the WindowsWelcomeCenter key.
5. Click on Delete.

When you start up your Vista system, there is a blank black screen flash that occurs as Vista searches for multiple monitors. This task is called Transient Multimon Manager (TMM) and is especially developed for laptops. It is a process that searches for multiple monitors so as to modify resolution intelligently. If you don't use multiple monitors, or if you use one but don't switch back and forth from one to the other, then you can speed up your startup by disabling this function.

1. Click on the Vista Start Orb. Select Control Panel.
2. Click on Administrative Options and then click Task Scheduler
3. Click on Task Scheduler Local in the left-hand pane.
4. Click on TMM at the top.
5. Click on Disable in the right-hand pane.

When you boot up your system, Vista will load up every single font that you have installed on your system. While this ensures that they are available to the different applications, it is not critical that they all be loaded on startup. Each additional font adds more time to the startup. Reducing the number of fonts that load on startup to about 300 to 400 will reduce your boot up time. To do this, move the extra fonts from the Fonts folder to a separate folder. Here’s how:

1. Log into Vista as an Administrator.
2. Open the Start menu by clicking on the Vista Orb. Click on Control Panel.
3. Click "Appearance and Personalization."
4. Click on the Fonts link. This opens the Fonts window.
5. Copy the fonts that you want to remove from the Fonts folder. To do this highlight the fonts you want to copy and press the Cntl + C keys.
6. Paste the copied fonts to a different folder for backup.
7. Go back to the Fonts folder. Right click on each font file you want to remove. Select Delete from the dropdown menu.
8. Close the folder. Reboot your system.

CAUTION

Do not move any system fonts that come pre-built into Vista, because these are used by your Windows OS. These include: Times New Roman, Arial, Verdana, MS Sans Serif, Trebuchet, Tahoma and Segoe.

If you do not have any peripheral devices connected to your USB ports or your COM ports, you can disable these ports to speed up startup.

1. Click on the Vista Start Orb. Select Control Panel.
2. Click on Hardware and Sound and then click Device Manager.
3. Disable any peripheral devices which you do not need.
4. Reboot.

The BIOS of your computer is set, by default, to use your CD/DVD drive as the first boot device. When you start up your PC, it will first check the optical drive for a bootable disk. If one is not found, then it moves on to your hard disk and boots up from there. You can shave off a few seconds from startup by adjusting your BIOS settings to use your hard disk as the first boot device. Here's how:

1. Restart your PC.
2. Press the appropriate key on your keyboard as it is booting up. (The key is indicated on your screen, usually F8, F1,F2 OR Del.). This will open your BIOS settings.
3. Change the first boot device to your hard drive. Save the new settings.