How to speed up boot process under Windows Vista or Windows 7

[viad]

Thanks! I gained about 14 sec, went from 54 to 38 seconds (including bios) . Not bad for a 5400rpm hdd

Edited August 19, 2013 by viad

[MagicAndre1981]

nice to see the great improvement

[doveman]

Hmm, I can't run it anymore as it throws up a "Gave up waiting for Win7RTM....", after the first reboot I think (I wasn't watching it). I googled this and it's because Windows\Prefetch\ doesn't contain a layout.ini file but I used

Rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks

to create one and then did

defrag c: -boot

before trying again but I got the same error and layout.ini has disappeared again!

EDIT: Cleared out Windows\Prefetch\ and tried again. It does seem to be doing several reboots, so maybe the error only comes after the last one. I can see "Stopping Trace" in the background, behind the error "Gave up waiting for Win7RTM physical prefetcher after 300 seconds. Could not wait for prefetcher" and again the layout.ini has gone AWOL.

Edited August 19, 2013 by doveman

[MagicAndre1981]

have you disabled Superfetch/Prefetcher?

[doveman]

Not myself but I'll double-check that they're still enabled and something hasn't automatically disabled them.

If they were disabled would

Rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks

create a layout.ini though?

EDIT: OK, checked the registry and they're both still set to 3 and Superfetch shows as running in services.msc

Edited August 20, 2013 by doveman

[MagicAndre1981]

install Enterprise Hotfix Rollup which fixes an prefetcher issue.

[doveman]

install Enterprise Hotfix Rollup which fixes an prefetcher issue.

OK I'll try. It was working fine until recently though so I don't understand.

[doveman]

install Enterprise Hotfix Rollup which fixes an prefetcher issue.

Hmm, I can't. It tells me I need to enable userdata persistence but I already have that enabled!

EDIT: Nevermind. Cleaned out my internet and temp files with CCleaner and MS Update Catalog started working after that. Downloaded the Rollup but haven't managed to get it to run yet but I'll try again after a reboot.

Edited August 20, 2013 by doveman

[MagicAndre1981]

what do you mean with "userdata persistence"?

[doveman]

what do you mean with "userdata persistence"?

It's what IE said needed to be enabled when I tried to open Windows Update Catalog.

I managed to install the Rollup by clicking on the msu file instead of the .exe.

I updated the BIOS to fix a fan-speed issue (that was the only change from the existing BIOS) and had a BSOD after booting and launching IE in Sandboxie but it hasn't reoccured. The PC has been acting a bit weird since though, a bit sluggish and video stuttering, so perhaps the Rollup wasn't a good idea. I was able to run the six boot sequence without getting that error anymore though, although that might have been due to clearing out the temp files rather than installing the Rollup.

[MagicAndre1981]

the issue was fixed by installing the Rollup. Is boot now better?

[doveman]

the issue was fixed by installing the Rollup. Is boot now better?

Yeah, I think it improved a bit after that, down to about 140-170s.

I recently set some third-party services (MCEBuddy, MPExtended/WebMediaPortal) to Automatic (Delayed) and that helps avoid the boot getting too bogged down but something I found was that there's a problem with HwInfo's auto-start, which creates a Task in Task Scheduler to start and this begins quite soon after Windows boots but then doesn't progress and shows the same thing on screen for ages, until everything else has loaded I think and then it finishes loading.

By disabling this Task and just running it from Start Menu - Start, it seems to have reduced my boot time from around 140s to 110s

[ElGringo]

since I used this method to speed up boot windows I noticed that on every reboot of the system is a creation of new files in the folder C: \ Windows \ Prefetch \ ReadyBoot. These files have the extension *. Avail, *. Dqpafm, *. Dqpafmsg, *. Dqpa, *. Dqpaf. the problem I have already posted some pages back is that I do not want these files are recreated on every reboot, when in every version of Windows 7 which has not been applied this method are not present and are not created by the system operating, as not necessary. these files also are increasingly fragmented and require unnecessary additional work hard drive. it is good to be suggested that in addition to how to use this method of speeding up the start, is also explained well how to undo the changes that the same has brought to the operating system. I look forward to answers.

Hello, i'm here now to post my suggestions in relationship of this topic and what i have quoted about my message.

I suggest simply of DO NOT USE THIS "TIP" for speeding up the boot of windows, cause it is simply useless, and you will go in my same situation, with this folder that's updating with those useless files that windows 7 DO NOT NEEDS, making only extra hard disk works after the user login. You also WILL NOT find any solution in the web for return back: those damned files will be refreshed every reboot, growing in fragmentation.

If you need to speed up your boot process, simply open the Command Prompt and paste this:

rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks

Wait some minutes, and Windows wil do EXACTLY the same thing, without the creation of those stupid files.

I have now reformatted my system after 3 days of hard work for transfering all my personal settings and software to a brand new pc, and i will NEVER use another time this called ^TIP^.

Bye all.

[MagicAndre1981]

This tip DOES make boot a lot faster for all other users. Windows Prefetcher must learn the layout during the boots.

And no, your command doesn't do the same thing.

[PanosG]

Hi, I followed your instructions to speed up my boot time, but I have received this error message!

"Failed to defragment disk after 5 attempts."