Hello again,

I have a small home network consisting of an XP machine and a ME machine, they share a high speed internet connection. My question is why does my XP machine boot up and shut down so much slower than the ME machine. It takes roughly three times longer to boot up and roughly 8 times longer to shut down, neither of those estimates are embellished. The XP machine literally takes 2 minutes to shut down.

The XP has a XP 2400+ with 512 MB's of RAM. It drives me crazy. Any ideas why it is so much slower?

PS. As soon as the ME machine boots up the internet is available but after the XP boots it takes about 1 minute longer before the internet is available or before I can access System Properties.

ME is a much leaner O/S with many fewer system files to open than XP. XP is rather bloated (though the file system is much more stable).

Just because XP looks like it is started does not mean all files are done loading (especially things like AV, firewall, etc).

If you have a newer OEM machine (dell, hp, compaq) there are probably also many proprietary programs that need to run also. This adds to the time. If you want an example, look at some of the hijackThis logs posted from hp machines. They have programs running for the cd writer, keyboard, sound, video, etc.

Are you sure you are free of malware and unnecessary start ups?

My home-built XP machine starts up in about 30-45 seconds. Once I get the main screen, the firewall and AV can add maybe another 15-20 seconds. It can take a minute or two to shut, depending on what I was doing.

Good point Briarwood,

I migrated from ME and now my boot is longer than never!

Thank you efabes, I appreciate the help. Yes, I'm sure I run Spybot and Adaware and I have PcCillin protecting my computer (although I can't get it to connect to the PcCillin server for updates) so I'm pretty sure I'm free of malware.

And the only programs that shouldn't be there at start up is Quicktime but I disabled that.

I understand that ME is signifacantly leaner but I didn't think booting up and shutting down would be so much longer. Thanks again for the help.

you have too much clutter on your xp system if you go START---> RUN---> MSCONFIG ----> STARTUP and untick everything it will boot up faster... you cannot fix the shut down speed on your xp system because you have to many programs installed... the only way to fix is a format and reinstall on the C:/

OUCH. Formatting does cure many problems but I sure wouldn't do it in this case.

Steve,
There was a post here either last month or the month before which told what to do to make XP's shutdown time shorter. I saved it for myself in my PC Tips folder. It involved changing something in the Registry. I did this and my computer now shuts down like my old Windows 98 Compaq did. Do you want me to find this fix for you and either post it or PM it to you? I will be happy to find it for you. Also on the programs running at startup, there are many that don't need to run at startup and this would shorten your startup time. I could look on the Internet and see if I could find a list of what we could turn off safely if you wanted me to. PM me and let me know.

Mine take 43 seconds to shut down and 1:14 to boot up from the power on...

(Athlon 2000XP, 128 RAM)

btw, briarwood can try this freeware:

QUOTE

Have you ever wished there was a faster way to shutdown your Windows 2000 or Windows XP computer system? I mean instantly shut it down! Now you can! Just install Super Fast Shutdown and click on one of the desktop icons created to reboot or shutdown instantly

http://www.gold-software.com/download3774.html

and, from Microsoft: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/syspe...ot/default.mspx

PS - You can download bootvis.exe from http://www.soft32.com/download_19687.html

Jeannie, I don't need it but the original poster briarwood might like to see you post it here.

Thanks for all the replies, I actually changed that setting in the registry a few months ago. I can't remember the exact steps but I think it involves changing some registry value to 200 or 400. It didn't really help.

Ironbender your system is much much quicker than mine. I'll try the links you supplied, thanks.

Windows is installed on a SCSI drive I don't know if that would effect boot up.