Jump to content

How long does it take to start WinXP


jumpjack

How long does it take to start WinXP?  

125 members have voted

  1. 1. How long does it take to start WinXP?

    • up to 30 secs
      52
    • 30-60 sec
      48
    • 2 mins
      14
    • 3 mins
      7
    • 4 mins
      1
    • >5 mins
      3


Recommended Posts


To ensure "like for like" comparison of startup times it might be good to define the start & end of the "start" process.

e.g. from pressing the power button to reaching the user selection screen, or from the end of POST to the desktop appearing, etc.

Some systems have a large delay during the hardware detection or PXE boot during POST which aren't anything to do with the OS at all.

For extra "useful comparative information" it might be useful to indicate anti-virus & personal firewall products installed, as my experience has been that these can affect startup times and "responsiveness" of the OS considerably.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My 1-year old XP installation now requires several minutes to completely bootup; I guess it's time for a reinstall.... :rolleyes:

But let me see how BAD is my system: how long does yours take to completely boot up?

HOLY CHIT!!! You really have something bogging you down...

XP here takes between 26-40 secs to boot. (Depending on the processes running yannow like updates, things like that)

Dell c840 P.O.S. Nearly worn out old bugger too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

it might be useful to indicate anti-virus & personal firewall products installed, as my experience has been that these can affect startup times and "responsiveness" of the OS considerably.

Those (I don't use either kind personally), and the dozens of startup apps we see on some boxes. Most of those being for useless systray icons, updaters and more pointless junk.

Remove all that junk (Autoruns works great for this), remove any malware if there is any, clean temp files (CCleaner comes to mind), defrag, and it should already start a whole lot quicker. It should only take like 5 minutes to do.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For me, its hard to answer this question. My computer (at home) takes between 2 and 3 minutes to boot. There are a few snags. Part is due to me having an older Intel board which takes 20-30 seconds with the Intel splash screen at POST, then the 30 second menu from the boot.ini, and then I have the welcome prompt where I click my username because I don't use automatic logon.

But it's my professional opinion is that if you have to keep reformating your drive and reinstalling Windows because it is getting too slow, then you aren't doing something right or learning your lesson from the last time.

Keep tabs on your services and startup apps (yes it is nearly impossible to stop the QuickTime app from loading), remove old drivers for hardware after you stop using it and don't save files in your User Profile (My Documents, My any other folder name or the desktop).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I had an install that was over three years old and took under a minute to boot. No services disabled, nothing "nLited". Just a normal Windows install.

maybe you're a "MAC-like" user, which once installs its system, just USES it, without adding to it anything more? :whistle:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

maybe you're a "MAC-like" user, which once installs its system, just USES it, without adding to it anything more? :whistle:
I've got just about the same thing, and I'm definitely not in the category that you suggested. While I don't run any active AV software, there's plenty of other things that contribute to the initial slowdown of boot times.

I'd say that from the moment the Windows logo appears to a fully functional working desktop, I'm in the realm of 45 seconds. A large portion of that is waiting for my network drives to re-map themselves. I could probably reduce this by writing a small script that does the mounting and have that run on startup, but it doesn't really bother me. I'm rarely rebooting my system anyways.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Actually that doesn't sound bad. I have policies and a host of other corporate baggage to deal with but it's what it takes. I know everything that's loading and why and accept that it takes time. It's a computer not a lamp, but if you're really curious why not run bootvis and see exactly what is loading and how long it takes? The XP design goal was 30 sec and I'm sure I could come close to that if I ran a vanilla install. For me, the tell-tale signs of needing a rebuild are when apps start crashing for no reason. :wacko:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

maybe you're a "MAC-like" user, which once installs its system, just USES it, without adding to it anything more? :whistle:

I'm in the same boat as Tarun and Zxian here. I use a LOT of apps and do a lot of things on my box(es), and my boot times are still great. No need to reformat all the time.

Like Mordac85 said, boot times on a stock install should be around 30 secs, but that often increases as you install some stuff (some software adds services, startup entries, etc) -- namely security apps, as well as the lack of doing any maintenance over the years (e.g. never cleaned temp files). But if it takes a lot longer than that (over a minute), then there's a problem somewhere (could be tons of things -- malware, slow logon scripts, network issues, badly behaving software, etc) and it should be easily fixable for the most part (clean temp files, defrag, remove startup entries, etc), and there are tools to trace the boot process as well.

The OS has never been reinstalled on this box so far and still working great. And I only plan to do so when I switch for the x64 version soon-ish. And that install should last several years too. I've seen Win2k & WinXP installs that were several (7+) years old, and being used everyday, still working as good as they were on day 1.

For me, the tell-tale signs of needing a rebuild are when apps start crashing for no reason. :wacko:

And even then, that's if it's not due to defective hardware or something like a driver update causing the issues...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

After seeing a new alert about a.exe program attempting to connect to internet, and that I was not able to connect to any virus-related site, I remembered I read about some viruses preventing accessing to antivirus-sites, and modifying antivirus executable to avoid been detected.

So I started system using BartPe, I downloaded Avast, I restarted PC and I reinstalled Avast from scratch.

After a full scan of all hard disks with avast (elapsed several hours...), I found I had installed A COUPLE of rootkits, and SEVERAL system DLL were infected!!!!

I told Avast to delete all infected files: now system properly starts in around 1 minute or 2 (I didn't actually measured the time...) rather than... infinity....

But I'm not sure Avast is REALLY clean, as I installed it AFTER booting the PC....

How can I get Avast starting at boot, without needing to install it?!? Does it exist any avast boot CD available for download?!?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...