Slow PC Start-up Time

[Mr_Jailer]

If your PC is slow starting up, there are simple things you can do to increase the boot time.


Before you do this, calculate the time it takes for you to boot to your desktop and keep a record of the time.

Windows XP

With Windows XP, the system always scans the following drives at startup:

· C:\Documents and Settings\All Users
· C:\Documents and Settings\[Name of person logged on]

Within these directories there are folders that contain a lot of files like ‘My Music’ and ‘My Documents’ and ‘My Pictures’.

These folders can contain a lot information such as music files, documents, pictures and program installers consuming many gigabytes worth of data.

The system scans all this data at start-up slowing down the boot time.

Dealing with My Documents

The simplest remedy is to move all the files in ‘My Documents’ to a different location outside C:\Documents and Settings\[Name of person logged on] that the system does not scan.

As the system will not scan any folder on the C:\ drive except for Documents and Settings, create for example a folder in another partition or in the root of the C:\ drive called C:\My Dox.

To create a new folder in the C:\ drive click File > New > Folder and name is whatever you like (My Dox).

If many of you use the PC, then you can name the folder after your name for example

· C:\Neelu Bird Docs
· C:\Cheeky Docs
· C:\Al-Irhab Docs

Copy and paste the files and folders from within the My Documents Folder to your newly created folder in C:\.

Depending on what you have, your main folder will take the same shape as your previous MY Documents folder:

· C:\Cheeky Docs\My Music
· C:\Cheeky Docs\My Downloads
· C:\Cheeky Docs\My Received Files
· C:\Cheeky Docs\My Pictures

Now that your My Documents folder has been cleared, you will find nothing in there when you click ‘My Documents’ on the desktop.

To point the ‘My Documents’ folder to your new folder C:\Al-Irhab Docs do the following:

1. Right click My Documents > Properties.

2. Under the Target tab you will see the Target Folder Location set to C:\Documents and Settings\[name]\My Documents.

3. Instead type: C:\Al-Irhab Docs

Each time you click on My Documents, it will take you to your C:\Al-Irhab Docs folder.

You could follow steps 1 and 2 with your other folders:

· C:\Documents and Settings\[name]\My Documents\My Music
To
C:\Cheeky Docs\My Music

· C:\Documents and Settings\[name]\My Documents\My Downloads
To
C:\Cheeky Docs\My Downloads

· C:\Documents and Settings\[name]\My Documents\My Received Files
To
C:\Cheeky Docs\My Received Files

· C:\Documents and Settings\[name]\My Documents\My Pictures
To
C:\Cheeky Docs\My Pictures

Now that you’ve pointed your folders in the right direction, nothing will be saved in the ‘My Documents’ keeping it compact and small.

You will notice a big difference in boot-up time if My Documents was cluttered with 100GB of data. Time it to see how long it takes you to boot up.



Note: If you download files from MSN Messenger, the default path with Messenger is set as:
C:\Documents and Settings\[name]\My Documents\My Received Files

Once you have moved the ‘My Received Files’ folder to its new document, MSN Messenger will detect that there is no My Received Files folder in My Documents and will create one.

In order to prevent this in Messenger click Tools > Preferences > File Transfer and set the file transfer directory to point to:
C:\Cheeky Docs\My Received Files

Your files will be received in your new location.

If you’re not an Intermediate or Advanced PC user, then move the big files / folders away from My Documents to somewhere else. You’ll still notice a difference in start-up.