Many times your MS Windows XP computer may be booting very slowly.
To solve that, one needs to go into Start -> Run, and type msconfig there, and then press “Enter”.
This will start the System Configuration Utility, where you should check the menu “Startup”. You will see tens of different programs that start when you switch on your computer.
At this site you can actually check what every and each of this programs does! As of today it has more than 15000 startuplist entries, and the number is growing. They’ve described them with a very neat table:
# “Y” – Normally leave to run at start-up
# “N” – Not required – typically infrequently used tasks that can be started manually if necessary
# “U” – User’s choice – depends whether a user deems it necessary
# “X” – Definitely not required – typically viruses, spyware, adware and “resource hogs”
# “?” – Unknown
This will allow you to get rid of a number of programs that take much of your computer’s CPU time, and memory.
Here are some of the programs I’ve unchecked: Mozilla, PicasaMediaDetector, Google ToolbarNotifier, Adobe Acrobat Speed Launcher, Acrotray (yes, another Adobe startup). But I’ve left OpenOffice.org for example.
Very useful page. Check it out!