What Creates Aggrivatingly Slow Windows Startup - By: Allin Taylor

My computer has nice and fast windows startup, around 60-70 seconds most of the time. I know that is not newsworthy but most of my friends (the ones who won't follow my advice) tell me that their computers take as long as five minutes to start. To me that seems crazy, but I know it is more common than microsoft would like to admit. What causes the computer to take so long starting up and what can be done about it? These are two good questions and the answers are actually pretty straight forward.

Firstly, what prompts the computer to start so slow? There are numerous things that add to the problem. Each one of them on it's own contributes a little bit more overhead to the process, so correcting just one of the offenders will help a wee bit and each additional area addressed helps a little more. The number one cause of slow boot times are startup programs, windows prefetch, temporary files, clogged registry, hard drive fragmentation, low memory, and malware. I will talk about each of these areas in turn.

Startup programs are just what the name suggests, programs that are configured to start every time you start your PC. Most of these are not required and definitely not desirable. You can find great free tools to find and stop these programs fairly easily. A preffered tool of mine is the startup tool in CCLeaner. Google it and download, it will help.

Low memory is another common problem. Most of the computers you buy these days do not come pre-installed with the maximum amount of memory they can handle. Do some research on your computer to learn how much you presently have installed and how much your computer can handle. Then go buy what you need to bring it up to max. This is one of the least expensive things you can do and yet it gives some of the biggest performance gains.

Temporary files, this one cracks me up because windows keeps your temporary files around forever if you dont get rid of them yourself. Those look more like permanent files to me. A simple solution here though is to use a tool you already downloaded, CCleaner. The default function of this tool is to move temporary files off your computer.

A clogged registry can really slow your computer down. The registry though is a very critical piece of your operating system and changes here should be handled with great caution. You can buy or download free registry cleaners, but I would leave registry work to trained proffessionals.

Hard drive fragmentation is extremely common and is a chief contributer to lengthy boot times. Download and install Smart Defrag. A very good free utility.

Malware, which means all types of malicious software from Spyware to Viruses and everything in between, are another leading cause of long boot times.

Windows prefetch is a folder that stores files pertaining to your settings of a variety of programs. Over time these files grow to be out of date and filled with worthless and erronious information. You should delete the contents of this folder if you have a slow windows startup problem. This is an straight forward manual process.

About the Author

If you would like more information about windows startup programs feel free to visit my website about windows startup risky where you will find useful articles and links.

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