What are the "sure" methods of reducing windows startup time?

My bootup speed is annoyingly slow. I know there are a few tips n tricks for reducing the time it takes to reach the desktop from the initial power on.

But what are the most effective of these tricks or hacks?

My details:
Windows XP Home running on a 256RAM, 2.5Ghz P4 laptop (with wireless internet). The computer is used mostly for surfing and P2P.

Most of the time, tell your machine to Hibernate when you want to turn off power rather than telling it to shut-down. Restoring from hibernation is usually faster than anything else.

Of course, this being Windows, you should do a true reboot from time to time to make sure things keep working fine. But doing this once a week might be good enough depending on what you are running. In GNU/Linux, you could probably get by only having to truly reboot when you install a critical kernel patch every few months. In Windows, I'm not sure if the monthly critical security updates will induce frequent enough reboots for system health.

Get more RAM.

Get rid of Norton/Symantec anything.

Look in your Startup folder to see if there are other load-at-startup programs that you can diasble.

Good advice ^

You can also run msconfig and look at the start-up tab to see what other services/programs are running at start-up and which might be hiding somewhere other than the Startup Folder.

And this thread
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=549466
has several other good suggestions.

Check out the Bootvis tool from Microsoft:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/S.../BootVis.shtml

Before you use msconfig to disable services, you might want to check this out:
http://majorgeeks.com/page.php?id=12

you can try Microsoft Bootvis to optomize the boot process. It is not longer supported by MS but can be downloaded here: http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=664

From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BootVis)

BootVis is a computer program that allows end users to check how long their Windows XP machine takes to boot. It was formerly a Microsoft product[1], but it is no longer an official Windows XP program. According to Microsoft, the design goals for Windows XP on a typical consumer PC are:

Boot to a useable state within a total of 30 seconds
Resume from Hibernate (S4) within a total of 20 seconds
Resume from Standby (S3) within a total of 5 seconds
The program measures boot and resume times as the time from when the power switch is pressed to the time at which the user is able to start a program from a desktop shortcut.

it can also be used to optimize the boot process. start it, and select Trace->Optimize System. Bootvis is not a miracle worker (all the tips given in the posts above are probably better), but it can help. Microsoft claims that it does not help, but others have reported that it does. See here: http://www.tweakhound.com/xp/bootvis/ for more discussion...

Ron

Try not using windows. Linix or Mac OS X runs smoother and fatster.


Number one Oxymoron: Windows Works

Leave it on or only go down to Standby. I can't remember the last time I actually shut down Windows XP. Cleaning up RAM clutter is taken care of by the periodic BSOD.

Number one lie: Linux runs smooth
Number two lie: Linux is a great replacement for Windows!

Number three lie: Linux works

---

Linux works great if you have nothing to do all day but scour the internet trying to figure out how to get all your devices to run under Linux. The Linux folks have had years to try and get their product in a state for suitable Windows replacement and have failed miserably.

Fallacy number four: There is an increasing selection of commercial desktop applications available for Linux.

If it's not open source, it probably won't be there. While there are credible open-source apps available as rudimentary equivalents, the functionality and elegance of the user interface usually leave a great deal to be desired.

Knot Kto Mention Kthat KThey Kcan't Kcome Kup Kwith Kdecent Knames Kfor Kthem.

LOL.. Classic!

^

The thing is, I respect Linux and the folks that run it. If it works for you, that's gravy. What I don't respect is recommending Linux as a replacement to Windows, without knowing anything about the user and his/her needs. 99% of the time that is a bad recommendation.

Thats not a lie per say. Just two different creatures. I can expect a
Linux(or any UNIX)
box to run for days/months/years reliably and without crashing if you
know what you are doing.

MAC is actually based on UNIX and works very well.


With wihdows, it may make you feel that you know what you are doing..
but thats far from the truth.