Analysing Windows XP Startup

[st13phil]

Is anyone aware of any (preferably free!) software that can be used to analyse the startup of a Windows XP-Pro machine? Something that lists what's starting up in what sequence and how long it takes for each service / program etc to start would be helpful. My home PC is slow in starting and I know from the System Event Log that one service is failing to start first time but I'd like to see where the largest chunks of boot time are going so that I can attempt to address them. BTW, this isn't a virus/malware issue - it's been a feature of the machine that I've lived with for a couple of years

TIA!

 

[Sp!ke]

You can download the trial version of system mechanic. (30 day license)

This will check a number of things including startup items, invalid registry keys etc etc and fix them where appropriate.

V. good software indeed that has done the job without fail whenever I've tried it. Its been around for a long time.

The biggest culprit of slow PC's is usally fragmentation of the drive. System Mechanic also does a thorough defrag in a more well thought out way than windows.

A quick way to check which service is failing is to go into sevices, sort by Startup type and then see which Automatic services are not started.

 

[WLeg]

Msconfig ?

 

[AndyS]

Is anyone aware of any (preferably free!) software that can be used to analyse the startup of a Windows XP-Pro machine? Something that lists what's starting up in what sequence and how long it takes for each service / program etc to start would be helpful. My home PC is slow in starting and I know from the System Event Log that one service is failing to start first time but I'd like to see where the largest chunks of boot time are going so that I can attempt to address them. BTW, this isn't a virus/malware issue - it's been a feature of the machine that I've lived with for a couple of years

TIA!

ccleaner is quite a good free tool for general cleanup - PC Booster is great for speeding up boot up but isn't free if you go the legitmate route of buying it and not downloading it for nothing on a torrent site..

 

[Soltan]

There is a tool (might actually be called boot log analyser) that will give you exactly what you want. Haven't needed it for a while but should still be around if you search hard enough. It was quite detailed though, on an old system it could overload you with data. Unfortunately most of my old systems are broken into spares or many many miles away, otherwise I'd check for you.

 

[Simon_M]

BootVis from Microsoft.

 

[Frank O' Phile]

CCleaner or Glary utilities do everything I need.

Also there are many articles on tinterweb for getting those unwanted start up services out of your boot process.

 

[Shude]

You can download the trial version of system mechanic. (30 day license)

Cheers Sp!ke, System Mechanic is grinding away at my PC right now! It shifted about 3GB of "clutter" earlier and now it's defragmenting. Hopefully it'll finish before the 30 days is up...

 

[stevesey]

Cheers Sp!ke, System Mechanic is grinding away at my PC right now! It shifted about 3GB of "clutter" earlier and now it's defragmenting. Hopefully it'll finish before the 30 days is up...

What Sp!ke didn't tell you was that after 30 days it puts the clutter back and re-fragments the drive.

 

[AANDYY]

Cheers Sp!ke, System Mechanic is grinding away at my PC right now! It shifted about 3GB of "clutter" earlier and now it's defragmenting. Hopefully it'll finish before the 30 days is up...

Be careful with system mechanic, it messed my PC up twice, be careful of the setting on the software. I'm not a PC novice, I.E. had them for about 10 years now and built them.
I can vouch for Ccleaner, spybot and ad-aware, free.

 

[Sp!ke]

I've used system mechanic on ... well loads of PC's and its never caused me problems.

After 30 days you can uninstall it and delete the entry in the registry like its never been there before

 

[st13phil]

A quick way to check which service is failing is to go into sevices, sort by Startup type and then see which Automatic services are not started.

I've nailed down the slow startup to the service which is logged as hanging on startup in the System Event Log. It's the Canon Camera Access Library, but the fascinating thing is that on every boot up the "hung on start" message is logged, yet inspection of the services after boot up shows that it is actually running. Weird. If I set this service to Manual startup the boot time reduces significantly so this is definitely the culprit. Unfortunately, the Camera Access panel then won't spark into life when the camera's connected unless I manually start the service before connection. Don't you just love these problems?

 

[Dragon]

Cheers Sp!ke, System Mechanic is grinding away at my PC right now! It shifted about 3GB of "clutter" earlier and now it's defragmenting. Hopefully it'll finish before the 30 days is up...

Ha, ha, ha, splutter, splutter.

 

[Dragon]

Go to Control Panel and Program Features and uninstall your garbages notably real players and Apple wares and anything you don't recognised.

Go to control panel and Administrative Tools and Services will list all the services clogging up your memory.

Go to Control Panel and Program Features and then Window Features and get rid of IIS if you are not hosting any web.

 

[axesrus]

Start- Run - TYPE msconfig - click ok
goto the strat-up tab..and check what is actually starting up..any dodgy none needed ones,,,clear the tick tab..and restart pc..

 

[jamsh]

System monitor

Try this.

 

[Viking2]

Cleaner is very good and free. Will clean up all the rubbish that is hiding away in temporary files/folders. Cleanup the registry and backup the registry before deleting anything. You can also list all the startup items and disable any you don't want to run. Works very well and I can highly recommend it. If you should delete the wrong thing it is easy enough to merge the deleted items with the registry again. Well worth a look.

 

[zmaster007]

Look for Bootvis. Developed by microsoft from what i remember, it gives a breakdown exactly how you ask.

 

[tlzeebub]

I use autoruns d/l from microsoft keeps boot times to a minimum