Is your computer a slow boot?

Does your computer seem intent on driving you crazy? Sometimes it seems like we wait what seems like forever for the computer to boot up so we can do something. What on earth could that computer be doing for so long between the time you press the ‘Power’ button and the Windows screen finally appears? Of course, once Windows loads, it usually takes a couple more minutes of clicking and grinding before the mouse pointer finally changes from an hourglass to an arrow. At that point, you’re lucky if you still remember what you wanted to do in the first place. This week, in my constant effort to help you keep your computer sanity, we’re going to talk a little bit about how to make your computer start up faster.

There are a few factors that could be making your computer run barely faster than an overweight slug crawling through an eastern Kentucky mudflat in winter. First, check how much hard drive space you have left. If you’re running low on space—that is, less than 1.5 gigabytes of free space—start looking for things to delete. Another potential problem that can cause computers to start up very slowly is the icons on your desktop. Make sure every icon on the screen is a shortcut to a document, picture, program, game, or whatever. You can put real programs on the desktop instead of shortcuts (a shortcut is a link to an item, not the item itself) and this can cause real problems on startup. A desktop shortcut is a very small file and takes almost no time to load and display on the screen. If you actually store a picture or program on the desktop, you could literally be uploading several megabytes of information just to display it on your screen when a shortcut would have worked better and faster.

One of the biggest enemies of fast computers is software that starts automatically when the computer is turned on. Things like Yahoo Messenger, Windows Messenger, the infamous Weather Bug, and Real Player do this, among others. Once you install the software, it loads itself every time the computer starts. Many times you won’t even know the program is running, as there is no indication except a small icon in the bottom right corner of your screen called the Taskbar Notification Area.

These software programs are so selfish that they think you just have to have them ready at a moment’s notice. I mean, you never know, it could be a matter of life and death that you send Aunt Sally in Michigan an instant message that little Junior just bit the cat. Surely we don’t want to wait a full 15 seconds for a program to load when we want to use it… Instead, it sits there, always ready at a moment’s notice. The problem is that while he’s sitting there, he’s wasting extremely valuable computing resources. I suggest that he set those programs to not load when he starts the computer. But how?

The answer to that question can be very easy or very difficult, depending on the application. First, try looking in the Startup folder in the programs menu (click Start –> Programs –> Startup) to see what is set to start automatically. Often you won’t see anything, but it’s worth a try. Next, open the offending program and look in the preferences/options/tools menu for something that says you don’t want the program to load at startup. As a last resort, and be careful if you do this as it can wreck your computer, you can click Start -> Run, type msconfig and press Enter key. This will open an application that will allow you to remove any startup programs. Instead of running msconfig yourself, I recommend hiring a qualified IT technician, as it can really mess things up if done incorrectly.

As always, if you have any questions or suggestions for future articles, please email me at [email protected].