Speed up Windows XP -- How to make Windows XP startup faster

Have you always been frustrated while you have to wait around for your slow Windows XP computer to startup? In this article, I will show you how to speed up Windows XP by increasing the bootup process of your PC.

1) Give priority to boot from hard disk

Some PC users will always ignore the boot sequence of the devices on the computer and set it to boot from CD-ROM by default, which consumes longer time to read the disk when starting up the Windows XP. Even though there is no disk, it will also automatically read the CD-ROM, which wastes the time and shortens the lifespan of the CD-ROM. So you can set it to boot from hard disk: press “DEL” key to access BIOS settings wizard when starting up the compute -> select “BIOS Features Setup” and press “Enter” -> select “Boot Sequence” and then “CD-ROM”.

2) Enable Quick Boot

There is a tab named “Quick Boot” in majority computers, which located under “Advanced BIOS Features”. Please enable it so when booting up the computer, there will be no detection towards the hardware and then speed up Windows XP.

3) Mark out unnecessary equipments

Currently, even though parallel and serial ports are not popular any more, there are still some interfaces on the motherboard. At this point, we can surely mark them out from BIOS to make Windows XP startup faster. After accessing BIOS wizard, select “PNP，PCI&ONBOARD I/O”, select “Onboard Serial Port1” and then set it to “Disable”. Adopt this idea, you can also disable the IDE2, parallel ports, USB and floppy drives. In this way, there is no need for the system to load more useless drives when booting up the computer and then speed it up from startup.

4) Disable some unnecessary services and startup items

In windows XP, the system will automatically enable some services that do not needed by lots of PC users, normally as more as 30. But actually, what we need is only 6 of them. So we can disable some unnecessary services to save some memory and speed up the computer. Here is what you should go: Start -> Run -> type “services.msc” and press “Enter” to start the system configuration utility. In the “Startup” tab, you will see a list of all the startup programs that load automatically when you boot up your computer. The more items you have checked here, the longer it takes for your computer to startup. So please check the list here and uncheck the programs that you don’t want to start up and click “OK”.

5) Regularly “lose weight” of system junk files

We know that when using the computer, there is no doubt some system junk generated on the hard disk. So it is necessary for us to run the Disk Cleanup utility to regular get rid of some unneeded junk files. Hence, it will not only free up the hard disk space, but also release more available memory for the programs that you do need, speeding up Windows XP. But do not forget to run a disk defragment after that to ensure compact and contiguous hard disk files all the time.

As what you can see above, to speed up Windows XP, it is easy for you to first optimize the bootup process of your PC with very simple methods. If you are annoying with your slower computer right now, do remember to take them immediately.