How to Speed Up Vista's Boot Time (Page 2 of 2)

This is a big one, but proceed with caution here! We really don’t want to have to use that restore point we created, do we?

To see the list of services running of your Vista PC, press the Windows key and enter “msconfig.” This will open the System Configuration dialog. Click on the Startup tab to see the list of processes that run at boot time.

Here you need to be a bit judicious. Do not stop a service if you do not know what it does. If you’re not sure, do a Google search and find out what the service is.

For example, I see a MobileMe startup item from Apple. I don’t recognize that one, and since I don’t have an iPod, I wonder if this process is needed. A Google search tells me that MobileMe is a service that pushes stuff from the “cloud” to my mobile device. A quick check here tells me that I don’t have an Apple mobile device, so I don’t need that!

Amazon Unbox. Well, sometimes I buy TV shows and MP3s from Amazon, but does it need to run at start-up? I’m usually reasonably sure when I’ve purchased something from Amazon and could start it to download myself. I don’t need Amazon Unbox.

There are other services you may not need. Some applications start a part of themselves at start-up to decrease the perceived time it takes to start the application. If it’s an application you don’t often need to use, then you can prevent it from starting automatically. (I don’t need OpenOffice to prestart.)

Bear in mind as you look at your services that one may impinge or rely upon another. For example, I have a Systran “server” running on my PC. It interacts with MS Word, Internet Explorer, and (until version 3) Firefox. It’s an example of a service that I do want to start.

Again, proceed with caution.

If this article has whetted your appetite and you decide to become a master of your startup services, download Autoruns from the Microsoft Sysinternals website.

“This utility, which has the most comprehensive knowledge of auto-starting locations of any startup monitor, shows you what programs are configured to run during system bootup or login, and shows you the entries in the order Windows processes them. These programs include ones in your startup folder, Run, RunOnce, and other Registry keys.”

Autoruns is pretty amazing. (Click the image to enlarge.)

Windows Explorer redraws the desktop, icon by icon, several times during start-up, including before and after loading the Vista sidebar. Deleting desktop icons does not remove the programs from the PC, so you should look critically at your desktop icons. Are some images or notes that you could move to a single "My Stuff" folder on the desktop? Do you really need icons from programs that you know well and use frequently? In Vista, it's often easier to press the Windows key on the keyboard or click the Start icon, enter a few charcters of the program's name. and press Enter to start it.

You can identify program shortcuts on the desktop by the presence of a small white block with a blue arrow superimposed on the programs' icons. (Programs that run and insert themselves in the System Tray certainly don't need to have desktop icons as well, do they?)

This will be a slight increase, but it will get you productive on your PC a little bit sooner.

The Vista file indexer contributes to a slow startup by starting its search update just as applications are trying to "phone home" for updates and other Windows services are trying to start. Fortunately, setting the indexer for delayed startup is easy.

Press the Windows button or click the Start button/orb and enter

services.msc

clearing the UAC prompt if active on your machine. In the "Services" dialog, select the “Extended” tab at the bottom, scroll down and double-click “Windows Search." Next to “Startup Type”, click the selection bar and select “Automatic (Delayed Start).” And that's it. The indexer will wait for other processes to finish before starting its scan.

Beyond speeding up Vista's boot time, we are also concerned with how quickly we can begin to use our productivity applications. If you have several applications installed that include start-up services, such as inserting themselves in the System Tray or "phoning home" for updates, you can spread the startup sequence out by using a utility application called Startup Delayer. This is, in effect, sacriicing speed for smoothness, but the perceived up-tick in how soon you can get to the applications you want to use can be surprising.

This is also helpful when start-up errors are occurring, like when a service that depends on another service tries to start first. An example could be an antivirus program that tries to retrieve updates before the network services are up and running.

More information about using Startup Delayer (and Autoruns) can be found in "How to Change the Order of Startup Applications in Vista."

This article was updated on April 8, 2009. The section on delaying the Vista file indexer startup was added.

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