Minimising Windows Bootup Time (1 Viewer)

[allanmb]

I have a dedicated PC for my HTP now and am running MediaPortal almost exactly as I want. My biggest problem is the amount of time it takes Windows XP to boot up. Is there a guide, or has someone already hinted at how to decrease the time of windows boot?

My thoughts are that there might be certain things I dont need from Windows so I dont need them to run on startup. Some services etc/registry entries etc.?

Has anybody got any hints or tips?

Thanks
Allan

 

[mPod]

The problem in this case is that you cannot predict what services 3rd party plugins or other components like MPEG decoders, etc. are gonna use.

So when you turn off too many services, MP could stop working and you'll be searching for hours what might be the cause. We already had such support cases here.

So Team MediaPortal strongly recommends to use windows as much as possible out of the box to avoid such hassle. Stripped down installations also fall into the same category.

 

[moullas]

Well.. you could start by viewing the area besides your clock

Remove from there the things you deem unneeded (Like NVIDIA or ATI toolbars, winzip etc)

Then, check the startup folder in the start menu, see if there are stuff like Acrobat loading, and determine if you need it to operate MP. If not, then remove

Then, for further tweaking you can go in the services and disable some, like Wireless Zero Config (If you don't have a WLAN card)
DHCP client (if you set a static ip on your HTPC)
Indexing Service (If you have already disabled it on your hard drives)
Security Center (If not planning to use it)
Windows Firewall (Same as above)

These are the services i always disable on mine, and are pretty safe provided you meet the conditions i've written

The registry is also a good place to look for unneded stuff...

Go to Start-> Run and type regedit
Open the HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Currentversion\Run key, and inspect it for any unneeded stuff, like Quicktime Launcher etc... (This varies from PC to PC, and if not sure then don't mess with the registry)

The last thing is if possible (if you haven't already installed Windows), to partition your disk to 2 volumes.
Make a small one (around 15-20Gb) for the Operating system and software, and the rest for the Media. This helps with the fragmentation of the system, as the OS will always be on the partition that doesn't get many changes, thus preventing fragmentation.
Then, defragment your drives to get the best possible perfomance out of them.

Also, if you have 2 hard drives (ACTUAL PHYSICAL DRIVES, NOT PARTITIONS), you can move the swap file to that one to further help performance somewhat.

Well.. hope i've helped, this list is somewhat the safe stuff to do, we can go in more detail if you want...

 

[geov]

Srvices and Start-Up programs

Hi
I'm one of those IT people that like to tweak my systems until I'm happy with the performance or until I have to rebuild because I broke something If you are willing to experiment and take the risk the following web-site could be of use to you. It allows you to search on all your services and start-up programs so that you can disable those you don’t need.

http://www.sysinfo.org/

Happy Tweaking

GeoV

 

[allanmb]

Thanks very much guys. I will have a little play around this afternoon. I dont mind breaking my Windows installation since I cant get Cool n Quiet running. I stupidly installed the wrong processor driver and now I cant uninstall that one and install the correct one. After numerous emails to AMD they still cant help. Next time I will make sure I install the Sempron driver and not the AMD64 one ;-)
Allan

 

[Spragleknas]

Start -> Run -> msconfig -> boot.ini --> tick [noguiboot]

Nice and free app for var. modifing: MS TweakUI

 

[thiskl]

@allenmb

I agree with mPod, too much tweaking of Windows can actually be counter-productive.

I'm curious as to how often you need to shutdown Windows, instead of going to S3 standby?

It takes longer for my TV to warm-up than it takes my PC to resume from stand-by.

 

[thechad]

If it is a dedicated HTPC why not look at standby or hibernate. I use neither and leave my HTPC on 24/7