>This list is "Designed for Windows XP", although I didn't receive the logo.... :-)
>
>1. Defrag your hard drive.  Use the built in XP defragmenter (dfrg.msc).  It's the 
>only one that properly optimizes your system's prefetching to speed up boot time.
>
>2. Go to Microsoft's website and download BootVis.exe.  It will optimize your prefetching 
>even further than the built in defragmenter.  Use both to get the best results: 
dfrg.msc 
>first, then BootVis.exe->Tools menu->Optimize.  Also, you can use it to benchmark 
>your boot time before and after system tweaks and software installations.
>
>3. Go to Start->Run... and type or paste "Rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks". 
> This will start a built in optimization routine that runs in the System Idle Process 
>and shows up as "rundll32.exe" in task manager.  It normally runs automatically 
every 
>3 days.  It will run for 15 mins to half an hour, so don't try to do anything too 
>intensive while its running.  If you get sick of it running, you should probably 
>log off or restart to be safe, rather than killing the process.
>
>4. Delete anything that you don't need in the Start->Programs->Startup folder, and 
>in the Registry under HKLM->Software->Microsoft->Windows->Run and HKCU->Software->Microsoft->Windows->Run.
>
>5. Go to Start->Control Panel->Administrative Tools->Services or go to Start->Run... 
>and type "services.msc" to display services running on your machine.  About 1/3 
should 
>be automatic, 1/3 should be manual, and 1/3 should be disabled, IMHO.  If you don't 
>know which to change, search google for "XP services" and read one of the many webpages 
>that describe each service.
>
>6. Use a partition manager to create a separate partition for your swap-file.  Set 
>its size to about 2.5 times the amount of physical RAM you have.  You can do this 
>by right-clicking my computer and selecting Properties->Advanced tab->Performance 
>section->Settings button->Advanced tab again->Virtual Memory section->Change button. 
> Whew! They don't make that one easy to get to.  Just don't completely remove your 
>swap file, cause your system might not boot after that, unless you have a lot of 
>physical RAM.
>
>7. Repeat steps 1-3.
>
>Ideally, XP on a clean install should boot in about 12 seconds from the time that 
>you see the XP logo to useable (can open a program).  With all my device drivers 
>and third-party utilities, the best I can acheive so far is 18 seconds on my Dell. 
> Don't use Norton SpeedDisk!--It may slow your XP system boot time by about 6 seconds.
>
>I have messed around with this a lot, to say the least, and I plan to build some 
>utilities to make it easier and give them away for free in the future.  Wish I had 
>a web address to post here, but I'll be around here in the future, so check back 
>in this discussion forum if you are really interested, or look for my utilities 
in 
>the next few months on download.com in the Utilities section.
>
>Good luck,
>Ben

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