Remember those old tube TVs that took minutes to warm
up after you turned on the power? How about dial-up modems that took
half a minute to connect to the Internet? In the age of fast-booting TVs
and always-connected Internet, you probably don't miss the waiting.However, when it comes to waiting there's one bit of
technology that's gone backwards. Two decades ago in the time of DOS,
you could turn on your computer and it would be ready to go in what
seemed like no time. Now you turn on a computer and you're waiting for
minutes to even get to Windows, and then you wait a few more minutes for
the computer to be ready to use
. But it doesn't have to be that way if
you follow these three steps.
Before we get going, we should explain why computers
take forever to start, and why they get worse over time. When your
computer starts, it's moving information from your slow hard drive, or
"storage," to the much faster RAM, also called "memory."
The more information that your computer has to move,
the longer your computer takes to start. And as your computer ages, more
information builds up. So, unless you want to upgrade to faster
hardware (more on that later), the trick is to reduce the amount of
information it has to move.
The best way to do this is to stop programs from
loading automatically at startup. Many programs on your computer are set
to automatically run right away, but most don't have to.
To stop these programs from running automatically, go
to Start>>All Programs>>Startup. Anything that is in this
folder will start when your computer turns on. Delete unimportant
program icons from this folder by right-clicking and choose "Delete."
Note: Deleting an icon from the Startup folder
won't remove the program from your computer. So, you won't mess up
anything if you delete something important.
That isn't the only place startup programs are found. You can use a program like Autoruns to
find another list of startup items and disable the ones that aren't
important. Autoruns tells you exactly what each program does, and it
knows enough not to disable essential startup programs like your
security software. Trust us; security software is well worth the time it
takes to load.
There are some programs that you might
want to start up automatically, but that don't need to run right
away. Programs like Startup Delayer will
start up these programs one by one, instead of all at once. This won't
make the individual programs load faster, but it will take strain off
your system so you can use programs sooner. Just be sure your security
software is the first thing that runs.
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