re: Solutions to ''Slow System Startup''
Monday, February 16, 2004 at 5:27 pm
Windows XP Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by Josie
(3 messages posted)
I had been having problems with XP taking several minutes while "loading personal
settings" I tried all the usual suggestions eg taking all unneeded items out of start
up, and checking I wasn't having any DHCP problems.
Then I discovered this Reg Hack which shows which files are actually being executed
while windows is loading (rather than just saying loading personal settings):-
***************************************************************************
Show Verbose Security Status Messages (Windows 2000/XP)
This setting allows you to configure Windows so that you receive verbose startup,
shutdown, logon, and logoff status messages. This may be helpful to in troubleshooting
slow startup, shutdown, logon, or logoff behaviour.
Open your registry and find or create this key:-
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWARE -> Microsoft -> Windows -> CurrentVersion -> Policies
-> System
To enable verbose status messages create a new DWORD value called "verbosestatus"
and set it to "1". (verbosestatus REG_DWORD 0x00000001 (1))
An additional value called "DisableStatusMessages" forces status messages to be disabled,
make sure this value does not exist or is set to "0". (DisableStatusMessages REG_DWORD
0x00000000 (0))
Restart Windows for the change to take effect.
Registry Settings
System Key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPolicies
System]
Value Name: verbosestatus
Data Type: REG_DWORD (DWORD Value)
Value Data: (0 = default, 1 = enable verbose status)
System Key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPolicies
System]
Value Name: disablestatusmessages
Data Type: REG_DWORD (DWORD Value)
Value Data: (1 = default, 0 = enable verbose status)
****************************************************************************
Once I enabled this I found that my computer was taking several minutes to load a
file called msg117.dll, so I googled that and found it was a rather perisitant piece
of spyware! See this link for removal instructions
http://www.kephyr.com/spywarescanner/library/look2me/index.phtml
You will have to remove it manually as while some anti spyware software (ad aware
etc) will detect it, they cannot actually remove it.
Just a brief note on this I found that I couldn't delete the msg117.dll file from
my computer (even in safe mode) as it kept coming up access denied (I guess because
it was loaded by windows during start up), however I could rename it so that it wouldn't
load on the next boot. Having done that I rebooted and could then delete it no problems.
It's also worth checking the registry again as I had to delete the keys several
times, as they kept reappearing.
So after all that I've finally got my boot time down from several minutes to about
10 seconds! :)
I hope this helps!
Josie
On Friday, January 3, 2003 at 1:51 pm, Ben wrote:
>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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 |  | re: Solutions to ''Slow System Startup'' (Josie: Mon, Feb 16, 2004, 5:27 pm) |
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