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Disclaimer: This is an older article and may contain outdated information or bad links.
Introduction
The typical Windows user has to restart his or her system several times daily. Whether it's due to installing a new program, updating drivers, or even the result of a system crash, it has to be done. There is practically no real way to avoid the near constant rebooting that Windows 9x forces you to suffer, but you can fight it. This guide will help you to minimize the time it takes your computer to startup. Also, this guide will help you optimize your computer's startup routine so you can enter Windows with a ton of free resources.
First Step - the BIOS
The first step to making your system startup quicker is to tweak certain BIOS settings that lead to slow downs and delays. To enter the BIOS setup, restart your PC and hit the key designated for setup. (ex: "Hit delete for setup") Usually the key is designated right on the screen, and often times this key is DELETE. If you can't find the key, look in your motherboard manual. If you can't find one of the following commands, look for a similar command. If you still can't find it, skip over it and look at the next command. Here are the commands you should look for to change:
These commands can be found in various sections of different BIOS setup programs. Search for the following:
Turbo Frequency - ENABLE. This will set your bus speed approximately 2.5% higher, offering a generous speed increase. This may not be supported or work on all systems. It will make the system startup a bit faster. Note that this can cause problems with some systems.
IDE Hard Disk Detection - This part of the BIOS Setup will detect your hard disks for you; and you can save the configuration. If you configure your hard drives here, you will not have to let your BIOS auto-detect the drives every time you boot up, which will save you time. This is a rather simple process and I don't think I need to explain it further.
Standard BIOS Setup Menu - This part of the BIOS Setup will confirm that all of the hard disks are configured. If you're sure you're not using a certain drive, turn off auto-detection and save yourself some time. CDROM drives usually do not need to be configured for Windows and your computer to identify them.
AGP Aperture Size - This number will set the maximum amount of memory that can be accessed by the AGP graphics card. It is recommended that you set this to 1/4 or 1/2 of your total system memory, unless instructed otherwise by your graphics card manual. If you receive odd errors when executing OpenGL applications, consider setting this value back to its default setting. E.g. if you run Quake 2 and the following error pops-up: Error GLimp_EndFrame0 - SwapBuffers0 Failed!
More BIOS Tweaks
These commands can be found under BIOS Features Setup in an Award BIOS, and many others:
Quick Power On Self Test (or POST) - ENABLE. This will have your system run a less detailed POST, resulting in a quicker boot sequence.
Boot Sequence - Unless you plan on booting off of any drive other than your hard drive, set this to start with C, your hard drive.(ex: "C, A, SCSI.")
Boot Up Floppy Seek - DISABLE. If you enable this, your system will take a few seconds to examine the floppy drive in search of a disk, wasting your time.
Standard BIOS Setup Menu - This part of the BIOS Setup will confirm that all the hard disks are configured. If you're sure you're not using a certain drive, turn off auto-detection and save yourself some time.
CPU L1 (Also known as Level 1 or Internal) Cache - ENABLE. This will enable your system's small, very fast cache, which helps overall system and startup speeds.
CPU L2 (Also known as Level 2 or External) Cache - ENABLE. This will enable your system's larger, fast cache, which helps overall system and startup speeds.
For more BIOS Tweaks, consult the CPU/Motherboard Tweak Guide.
Autoexec.bat, config.sys...
Choose Start, Run, and type sysedit. This should launch the System Configuration Editor. Click the autoexec.bat window first. These programs are automatically executed when you first boot up your PC. Since some programs are not needed with Windows 98, you can remove these from your memory. First, make sure the program you are going to remove is not something that is required. If you think it may be used by a program, simply put REM (remark) in front of the line that launches the program. For example:
REM C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\MSCDEX.EXE /D:IDECD000
Once you are sure you've REM'd out the proper programs, close the autoexec.bat window and check out the config.sys window. If you see any drivers that you're sure you don't need (remember, most of these will only be needed for DOS), delete the line(s) that pertain to the driver. Close config.sys.
You can do plenty of tweaking in the other files here, but for now just close the System Configuration Editor and move on the next section.
Second Step - Windows Startup
Windows has numerous programs available to tweak your system's startup process. Luckily, one of the best programs, System Configuration Utility, was included with Windows 98. Even Windows 95 users can still grab most of these features from TweakUI, available from the files section (I'll discuss TweakUI in detail a bit later, so you might want to grab it now).
System Configuration Utility
To start the System Configuration Utility, click the Start button, choose Run, and type msconfig. (then hit enter)
It will pop-up to this screen, which already presents some useful options:
Here you can choose which system files to process at startup. You probably shouldn't alter anything on this section unless you know what you're doing. Click the Advanced button for some more good tweaks:
Here you have more options. I recommend you check the box "Disable Scandisk after bad shutdown" to turn off Scandisk's auto-run feature. Most people find this to be irritating. If your system fails to shutdown properly, try checking the "Disable fast shutdown" box. The other options are all for advanced users. You can right click an option and choose "What's This?" for a better description.
Next comes one of the more valuable sections of this program: the Startup tab, found in the main window of the program. Click the tab and you'll see a list of all the programs that launch automatically when your system is started:
Now you can finally choose which programs you actually want your system to launch when it first starts up! Make sure to leave any programs that you're unsure of alone. I recommend you disable any programs you know you don't use every day, like (for me at least) RealPlayer, Microsoft Office, FindFast (Make sure you DISABLE this program), and the Scheduling Agent. If you don't use ICQ very often, create a shortcut on your desktop to ICQ and disable the feature in the Startup tab. When you do use ICQ you can double click the shortcut you created on your desktop. Doing all this will save you plenty of memory and help your system to boot much faster. Now, choose "OK" and restart if necessary.
More Startup Tweaks
TweakUI
TweakUI is one of my personal favorite programs because it does so much, and requires so little effort. Download TweakUI here, and install it. Once you have it installed, choose Start, Settings, and then Control Panel. Double click the TweakUI icon, and begin tweaking. The first tab will give you options to change your mouse / menu speeds. Click the General tab at the top for a wealth of valuable options.
The "Effects" section allows you to choose which components to activate. Some of these take a lot of CPU and memory resources, so only enable those features which you feel are necessary. The more you enable, the more CPU power and memory resources you will lose. The only options I have enabled are Smooth scrolling, Beep on errors, and Menu underlines.
The Explorer and IE4 tabs offer many other tweaks that you can experiment with. As before, you can right click any option and choose "What's This?" for a brief description. There are still many other menus which can be accessed. Use the small arrow buttons to move the tabs over to see more. One tab I would pay close attention to is the Boot tab.
Here you have a few others options. Again, you have the option to disable scandisk. Enabling the splash screen may result in a longer boot time. I would leave "Start GUI Automatically" enabled, and "Function keys available" enabled.
In the Control Panel tab, you can tell Windows which Control Panel applets you actually want to load. Remember - this doesn't delete the applets, it only removes the shortcut. If you need to re-add a shortcut to an applet, enter TweakUI and do so in this tab.
In the Network tab, you can set your login name and password to be automatically entered. This is not recommended however because Windows will not encrypt the password, so anyone with access to your registry and a little knowledge can give you a really bad day.
Under the New tab, you can choose to remove some of those pesky right click -> new items. Now.. if only we could add to these easily...
The Add/Remove programs tab is handy because you can remove programs from this list, even if they failed to uninstall. I remove any programs that failed to uninstall properly or programs that I know I won't be uninstalling for a long time (like ICQ, MS Office, etc.)
The Repair tab fixes errors that you may have had in Windows. Check it out for more info. Finally, the Paranoia tab lets you hide all your dirty work so people won't know what you've been doing. Also, there is another cool feature here... you can disable the automatic play feature on audio and data CDs. If you play Unreal, you know why. =)
hird Step - More Ideas
After completing the steps I mentioned before, you will certainly see a decrease in boot time and an increase in overall performance. Your system will be running excellent upon startup. However, sometimes that's just not good enough. Here are a few other recommendations:
Add more ram! Adding more ram to a system with Windows will not only decrease boot times, it will also decrease hard drive access and therefore boost overall system performance. Your system will remain smooth longer and have to reboot less often.
Get Tweaked! Check out Keith's Windows Cleanup Tweak Guide and his Windows Shell Tweak Guide. These two guides will also help boost system performance and overall stability. Also, check out the rest of our tweak guides for more hints to boost performance.
Defragment your hard drive! Sure it sounds simple and obvious... but many people forget to defrag their hard drive. You can defrag your drive by choosing Start, Run, and typing defrag. (then hit enter)
Conclusion
With a little work, you can make Windows boot faster, and run smoother, simply by choosing what is loaded when the system starts up. I hope this guide has been informative and helpful. Good luck with your tweaking, and make sure to share your results!
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