Colin's Weekly Tip: Fast Boot Tips for WinXP

[Colin]

<BR>Even though WindowsXP is a fairly fast OS, I often hear people complain about how long it takes to boot up. Not to worry though, there's a simple registry tweak that can dramatically speed up your WinXP boot times! [Ed: Also have a look at our "Fast Boot Tips!" article for more tips on this subject]<BR><BR>Click the Start button then go to "Run" and type in "Regedit". Now follow this string HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> SYSTEM -> CurrentControlSet -> Control -> SessionManager -> MemoryManagement -> PrefetchParameters.<BR><BR>Once inside, find the Prefetch string and change the value from 3 to 5. Since the value's are so low, it doesn't matter if you're using Hexadecimal or Decimal.<BR><BR>With this little tweak, WindowsXP should load up between 5-10 seconds faster! 5 seconds doesn't sound like a lot of time, but when you're waiting for a computer to load, it can feel like an eternity!=)<BR>

[mccy]

I found when i did this that t took a lot longer for the system tray to load which negated getting to windows proper quicker. Plus the extra speed of windows far from equivalent to the extra length of time needed to load the system tray. With the setting left on 3 windows takes marginally longer to load but you can access progams almost immediately when the GUI screen appears, instead of a long wait before everything settles down and frres up the memory. (p.s my system tray is not overloaded with large amounts of needless programs, it has virus check, volume control, sidewinder controls and network status so it's not its contents slowing things down, but I would like to know how I can choose what's loaded in he system tray on sart up if you can as I'm annoyed with aving to close them everytime).

[JDOG]

Hello'<BR><BR>Go to start button, click run, and type msconfig in the run box and click ok.<BR><BR>When the system configuration utility box opens, click the far right tab called startup.<BR><BR>Uncheck the prograns that you don't want to load on startup. Click ok and restart the computer.<BR><BR>You may also want to check your startup folder, click start go to all programs, look for the startup and right click and delete any icons for programs that you don't to load in startup.<BR><BR>Hope this helps you...<BR>-=JDOG=-<BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>

[Ace]

This is an interesting tip. What is this actually doing though? I hear prefetch is Windows predicting what prog you're going to use and when.

[Assimilator87]

I didn't have a prefetch string so I just created a string value called Prefetch. Will that work?

[Lakario]

Colin didn't completely clarify. The prefetch string is actually called "EnablePrefetcher." That is the value you must modify.

[Assimilator87]

K thanks. I appear to be the only one who didn't know that lol<img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif" border="0">

[Apoc1017]

it isnt enable prefetcher, that is used for something else (but, boot prefetching must be disabled for this tip, colin covered this also). the string you want has the <b>value</b> called "Prefetch", change it to 3, 4, or 5. Ive found 5 to be the fastest for booting up startup/msconfig progs, but it may be different between systems.

[LBJGH]

wow, that is a cool tip... I just saved 5 seconds of my life. :D ... I'm gonna restart my pc and save another 5... but kidding aside, it worked great for me.

[LBJGH]

hmmm, doesn't seem to work after installing SP2! :(

I just did a clean install and there is no PrefetchParameters string. ??

[chachabah]

hmmm, it took much longer for my system tray to fill after changing "EnablePrefetcher" to 5 from 3. back to 3, and she's loading just fine...

[Crax]

Has anyone else lost the use of this nice tip after SP2? It was all fine and stuff until I had to reformatt my comp last week, now this doesnt seem to have any effect on my boot up time... Bleh.

[LBJGH]

Same here... [homer's voice]stupid microsoft[/homer's voice]
Has anyone else lost the use of this nice tip after SP2? It was all fine and stuff until I had to reformatt my comp last week, now this doesnt seem to have any effect on my boot up time... Bleh.