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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