OReilly.credit.XP.hacks.pdfAdditional resources7).$/7380(!#+34IPS4OOLSFOR/PTIMIZING9OUR/30RESTON'RALLA3ND%DITION#OVERS30Presented by:Speed Up Boot and Shutdown Times #3Startup and Shutdown|11HACKHACK#3Speed Up Boot and Shutdown Times Hack #3Shorten the time it takes for your desktop to appear when you turn on yourPC, and make XP shut down faster as well.No matter how fast your PC boots, it’s not fast enough. Here are severalhacks to get you right to your desktop as quickly as possible after startup.Perform a Boot DefragmentThere’s a simple way to speed up XP startup: make your system do a bootdefragment, which will put all the boot files next to one another on yourhard disk. When boot files are in close proximity to one another, your sys-tem will start faster.On most systems, boot defragment should be enabled by default, but itmight not be on yours, or it might have been changed inadvertently. Tomake sure that boot defragment is enabled on your system, run the RegistryEditor[Hack #83] and go to:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOptimizeFunctionEdit the Enable string value to Y if it is not already set to Y. Exit the Registryand reboot. The next time you reboot, you’ll do a boot defragment.I’ve found many web sites recommending a way of speedingup boot times that might in fact slow down the amount oftime it takes to boot up and will probably slow downlaunching applications as well. The tip recommends going toyour C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch directory and emptying it everyweek. Windows uses this directory to speed up launchingapplications. It analyzes the files you use during startup andthe applications you launch, and it creates an index to wherethose files and applications are located on your hard disk. Byusing this index, XP can launch files and applications faster.So, by emptying the directory, you are most likely slowingdown launching applications. In my tests, I’ve also foundthat after emptying the directory, it takes my PC a few sec-onds longer to get to my desktop after bootup.Hack Your BIOS for Faster StartupsWhen you turn on your PC, it goes through a set of startup procedures in itsBIOS before it gets to starting XP. So, if you speed up those initial startupprocedures, you’ll make your system start faster.You can speed up your startup procedures by changing the BIOS with thebuilt-in setup utility. How you run this utility varies from PC to PC, but you,ch01copy.789 Page 11 Friday, February 11, 2005 4:21 PM12|Startup and Shutdown#3 Speed Up Boot and Shutdown TimesHACKtypically get to it by pressing the Delete, F1, or F10 keys during startup.You’ll come to a menu with a variety of choices. Here are the choices tomake for faster system startups:Quick Power On Self Test (POST)When you choose this option, your system runs an abbreviatedPOSTrather than the normal, lengthy one.Boot Up Floppy SeekDisable this option. When it’s enabled, your system spends a few extraseconds looking for your floppy drive—a relatively pointless procedure,especially considering how infrequently you use your floppy drive.Boot DelaySome systems let you delay booting after you turn on your PC so thatyour hard drive gets a chance to start spinning before bootup. Mostlikely, you don’t need to have this boot delay, so turn it off. If you runinto problems, however, you can turn it back on.Fine-Tune Your Registry for Faster StartupsOver time, your Registry can become bloated with unused entries, slowingdown your system startup because your system loads them every time youstart up your PC. Get a Registry clean-up tool to delete unneeded Registryentries and speed up startup times. Registry First Aid, shown in Figure 1-3,is an excellent Registry clean-up tool. It combs your Registry for outdatedand useless entries and then lets you choose which entries to delete andwhich to keep. It also creates a full Registry backup so that you can restorethe Registry if you run into a problem.Registry First Aid is shareware and free to try, but it costs $21 if you decideto keep using it. Download it from http://www.rosecitysoftware.com/Reg1Aid/index.html.After you clean out your Registry, you might want to try compacting it to getrid of unused space. The Registry Compactor, available from http://www.rosecitysoftware.com/RegistryCompactor/index.html, will do the trick. Com-pacting your Registry reduces its size and decreases loading time. It’s share-ware and free to try, but it costs $19.95 if you decide to keep it.Speed Up Shutdown TimesIt’s not only startup times that you’d like to speed up; you can also makesure that your system shuts down faster. If shutting down XP takes whatseems to be an inordinate amount of time, here are a couple of steps you cantake to speed up the shutdown process:,ch01copy.789 Page 12 Friday, February 11, 2005 4:21 PMSpeed Up Boot and Shutdown Times #3Startup and Shutdown|13HACKDon’t have XP clear your paging file at shutdown. For security reasons,you can have XP clear your paging file (pagefile.sys) of its contentswhenever you shut down. Your paging file is used to store temporaryfiles and data, but when your system shuts down, information stays inthe file. Some people prefer to have the paging file cleared at shutdownbecause sensitive information, such as unencrypted passwords, some-times ends up in the file. However, clearing the paging file can slowshutdown times significantly, so if extreme security isn’t a high priority,you might not want to clear it. To shut down XP without clearing yourpaging file, run the Registry Editor and go to:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\MemoryManagementChange the value of ClearPageFileAtShutdown to 0. Close the Registryand restart your computer. Whenever you turn off XP from now on, thepaging file won’t be cleared, and you should be able to shut down morequickly.Turn off unnecessary services. Services take time to shut down, so thefewer you run, the faster you can shut down. For information on how toshut them down, see “Halt Startup Programs and Services”[Hack #4].Figure 1-3. Cleaning the Registry with Registry First Aid,ch01copy.789 Page 13 Friday, February 11, 2005 4:21 PMAdditional resources • Sign up for the Windows XP newsletter • Sign up for the TechRepublic NetNote • See all of TechRepublic's newsletter offerings • Configuring Windows XP security after you install Service Pack 2 (TechRepublic) • The Anatomy of