Slow boot-up

[Cockney Guy]

My computer works very fast in al respects but boot-up seems to take 'forever'. Any ideas why?
Thanks in advance of replies

[CheekyChick]

what size is your user profile that it's having to load?

[Cockney Guy]

Don't ask personal questions...lol (Just kidding) Actually, I'm not sure what that means, sorry.

[CheekyChick]

LOL ;o)
Ok - hopefully you're using XP
Right click on My Computer and select properties.
Click on the Advanced tab and select the middle option which says settings in the User Profiles section.
You'll get a list of profiles stored on your computer - what size (oo-er!) is yours??

[Cockney Guy]

Okay thanks. Yes using XP and done exactly what you said above. The result is, Administrator = 1.58 Meg and Personal = 3.12 Gb

[ScrapyDoo]

OK so once you two have stopped flirting :) LOL

user profiles aren't that important on stand alone machines, it's more likely to be loads of crap that the computer is loading at startup

have a look down by the clock in the bottom right hand corner.. if you have more than about 10 icons down there then your computer is probably loading more than it needs to at startup. sadly half you stuff you ever install on your machine trys to put some stuff in the startup, most the time it's not needed.

[CheekyChick]

Yep, 3 gig is a lot - every time you log on to your machine it loads 3 gigs worth of information. The place where this usually builds up is in My Documents. Do you have a lot of photos/music/personal files in there??
What I'd recommend is moving these out of the My Documents folder into another folder on the root of your machine unless you have a partitioned drive.
The other thing that causes a larger user profile is any files you have saved on your desktop, again try to move these.

[CheekyChick]

It does make a difference when the profile is that large. As scrapy (dictionary required! PMSL) said it is also likely to be things loading at startup but just do the profile initialy and see how you get on.

[Cockney Guy]

I thank you both for your technical expertise and in fact, I think you are both right coz I have stacks of stuff in my documents and strangely enough, I was thinking of backing up all that on memory stick and deleting it from the computer. Furthermore, there are ten ocons in the toolbar next to the clock, they just appear after loading stuff. At least I'm sure that you have both pointed me in the right direction for which I'm very grateful. Tomorrow, I will get to work on it.
Many many thanks for your assistance
Regards
CG

[MrBounty]

I dont think it matters how much stuff you have in your My Documents which makes start up slow.

If your machine gets past the Bios screens and you see your desktop wallpaper (or similar), then it's the programs which run on start up along with what you have on your desktop which makes the computer start slowly.

If you have a lot of data on your desktop, then that will slow down your machine on start up.

One guy who's PC i had to check out was complaining it was taking forever to start up in the mornings......turned out he had 24GB sitting on his desktop!!
Once it was all moved from there, it run a heck of a lot better.

With regards to the progs that run in start up, check out your msconfig and see what runs.....you can hopefully stop some of them, too, without uninstalling them!

[Cockney Guy]

Thank you Mr B. Again it sounds like too much stuff on startup. I literally take my morning bath or shower whilst the computer is booting up and by the time I get back it is usually ready to go. I was even thinking of formatting the drive and re-installing the operating system.
Cheers for all the good advice.

[ACtheTROLL]

size of profile/my docs only relavent if it's filling the disc. NTFS req 20% free (min)

download ccleaner
http://www.ccleaner.com/download
uninstall any progs you don't use
defrag disc
get cc's e-mail addres/phone number

[whiffey]

Another thing is Start/Run and run msconfig. This calls the System Configuration Utility, on the far right of which is a tab called Startup. Have a look at what is being loaded at startup, uncheck any you don't need. If you're not sure, it *probably* won't do any harm unchecking, but in many cases you will be able to discern what is obvious crud.

Also, try to become a little familiar with the Task Manager - right-click on the taskbar, Task Manager, open the Processes tab. You'll get a very busy screen of what is actually running at that moment. You won't do any harm by flicking on the top tabs (CPU, Mem Usage, etc) to reorganise the display. If anything is hogging the box, you'll be able to find out here, and short of killing off processes you won't do any damage.

[Cockney Guy]

Sorry for the delay in responding but my wife has had me driving her all around the shops today but many thanks for all your replies and good advice. I have followed that advice and like magic my PC loads much faster now and much of the stuff I had on is now safely on a portable hard-drive.

I would like you all to know that I very much appeciate all contributions and I think I'm a little wiser now, although not quite ready to change to an IT job just yet...LOL. Seriously though, my thanks to you all