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How to Speed Up Windows XP Startup

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Windows XP can be sluggish on startup, especially if you installed it a long time ago. In this FAQ we're going to address the issue of slow Windows XP booting and show you ways to improve startup speed.

Remove Unwanted Software

Get rid of all unnecessary applications that are installed on your system, especially those that pre-load during system startup. These might be Winamp Agent, iPod helper services, Adobe helpers, Java schedulers, just to name a few. You don't need them to be loaded at startup, they will only slow you down. To see which applications are running on the system press Ctrl+Alt+Delete right after login. Identify applications that aren't necessary and delete them!

Control what's run at startup.

Use startup manager of your choice, for example Norton 360 includes a startup manager facility, to decide which applications are run upon system start.

Fine-Tune Registry

To speed up booting you'll also need to fine-tune your registry. There are a lot of registry optimizers out there. You should definitively give Wise Registry Cleaner Free a try or get another registry cleaner that fits you.

Defrag Registry

Over time, your registry gets fragmented and de-fragmenting it will give you faster boot times. Some registry cleaners have also the defragmentation feature. If yours doesn't dowload Wise Registry Cleaner Free.

Defrag Your Files

Periodically run disk defragmentation to ensure fastest possible load times of disk files.

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User comments on this frequently asked question:

Submitted by Guest (not verified) on September 13, 2011 - 07:01.

How do I know if I can safely disable program that is run on startup?

Submitted by Kirk G. (not verified) on September 14, 2011 - 01:12.

Usually programs like iPod helpers, Adobe starters, Java starters, Winamp agents and other applications that help other applications start faster are safe to be disabled at startup. Also if you're a gamer you can turn off services used for games such as Steam resident daemon, PunkBuster, etc. They will start when you start the game, there's no reason to run them at startup.

Submitted by Guest (not verified) on September 12, 2011 - 05:02.

How do I select which applications to start on startup?

Submitted by KHK (not verified) on September 13, 2011 - 07:05.

You're best off using some software to do this. E.g. Norton 360 includes boot manager.

Submitted by Guest on October 20, 2011 - 09:27.

I bought Norton 360 at http://www.teezsoft.com