How to slim down and tweak (kill) your Windows XP installation

[Guest]

[LeoniAquila]

LA, can you test if gpedit.msc works for you by typing it in the start>run?

It does not work.

LA

[soyabeaner]

For me it does, as else I get a few seconds delay before the welcome screen shows up (first it's black, then blue, then welcome screen appears).

You're right.  Looks like my PC's previous incarnation/reformat was far from perfect because this one's look great .  Slightly faster shutdown, but definitely noticeable faster startup .  Now I'm going to really follow that 12 second boot-up trick whole-heartedly.  We'll see after 10-20 reboots .  If there's anything that I find factual based on my experience, it's that the prefetcher option from the default 3 (boot+app) to 2 (boot only), I notice no application startup delays at all.  So LA was right to stick with the value 2 after all.  Then I'll re-disable Task Scheduler.

No, it won't. But skipping the boot sequence and have everything loaded at once wouldn't be too bad.

ISTR that doing this meant that a boot-time disk check couldn't be seen, so unless one realises what's happening the delay is a bit worrying.

I confused between the 2: disabling the welcome screen just gets rid of the blue screen (not the BSOD ) and changes how users log off.  It also switches the "Turn Off Computer..." to "Shutdown..." in the start menu.  While disabling the XP logo with the blue progress bars is something else - that's the one that removes check disk,etc. messages and is disabled through msconfig or the boot.ini file.  That one might strip off half a second, but I'm going to leave it.

It does not work.

Thanks for checking.  Unless you blindly removed registry keys with RegSeeker after all the tweaking, my guess was correct in that the entire WBEM folder was needed to run gpedit.

[LeoniAquila]

If there's anything that I find factual based on my experience, it's that the prefetcher option from the default 3 (boot+app) to 2 (boot only), I notice no application startup delays at all.  So LA was right to stick with the value 2 after all.  Then I'll re-disable Task Scheduler.

Don't you mean re-enable Task Scheduler? Or are you saying that boot prefetch doesn't need that service? If so, I would gladly enable prefetch again, without turning on TS...

LA

[soyabeaner]

You didn't read that 11 second boot guide?

I already re-enabled Task Scheduler last night.  I'm not certain if the layout.ini file will be re-created because the only file I have in the Prefetch folder is NTOSBOOT-_______.pf.  After 10-20 reboots, I'll disable Task Scheduler.  It's true that Task Scheduler is only needed for the option 3 (boot & app prefetch), but that "Chat" guy said you strangely need TS running to push the boot-times near the edge of the hard drive or something.  So after those x # of reboots, everything should be perfected and TS can be disabled.

[LeoniAquila]

You didn't read that 11 second boot guide?

I already re-enabled Task Scheduler last night.  I'm not certain if the layout.ini file will be re-created because the only file I have in the Prefetch folder is NTOSBOOT-_______.pf.  After 10-20 reboots, I'll disable Task Scheduler.  It's true that Task Scheduler is only needed for the option 3 (boot & app prefetch), but that "Chat" guy said you strangely need TS running to push the boot-times near the edge of the hard drive or something.  So after those x # of reboots, everything should be perfected and TS can be disabled.

No, I haven't read it, this far. I'm not yet much into manual registry tweaking, that's the next topic.

Very strange, maybe worth a try. I'll enable TS and Prefetch, reboot 20 times, then disable TS...

LA

[soyabeaner]

no no.  This the correct order of things (that Chat guy's message was seriously disorganized, so no wonder it's confusing):
1.  Enable Task Scheduler to Auto
2.  Regedit to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters\EnablePrefetcher -> Ensure the value is 2 to prefetch boot files only
3.  Delete all files in %systemroot%\Prefetch
4.  Wait after 10-20 normal reboots.  Normal probably means don't intentionally reboot consecutively, but to do your casual PC usage.
5.  Disable Task Scheduler
6.  Repeat the above if you start noticing boot-times are slow over several months.

Since he has a 2.17 GHz AMD, it should be slower than mine.  Other than some various drivers and programs, I can't see how he can beat my boot-time .

[Ragwing]

You didn't read that 11 second boot guide?

Wasn't it 12 second boot guide a few posts ago?

Unless you blindly removed registry keys with RegSeeker after all the tweaking, my guess was correct in that the entire WBEM folder was needed to run gpedit.

It works just fine for me, and I don't have that stupid WBEM-folder.

[soyabeaner]

Wasn't it 12 second boot guide a few posts ago?

I know but that Chat guy said he sometimes can attain 11 seconds.  If you read further on in that thread, he said it's possible to get it down to 7-8 seconds.

It works just fine for me, and I don't have that stupid WBEM-folder.

That narrows it down to either some dlls I deleted and/or RegSeeker.  Can't get any more specific than that unfortunately.  Either way, it since Gpedit is useless now, so I might as well go all the way through and remove it.

[Ragwing]

I know but that Chat guy said he sometimes can attain 11 seconds.  If you read further on in that thread, he said it's possible to get it down to 7-8 seconds.

It's no hard to get fast boot. Just reformat your computer. By the way, what do you define as the boot time? From your turn on the computer until you can log in?

That narrows it down to either some dlls I deleted and/or RegSeeker.  Can't get any more specific than that unfortunately.  Either way, it since Gpedit is useless now, so I might as well go all the way through and remove it.

gpedit has always been useless?

[LeoniAquila]

Thanks for the advice.

(maybe one day I'll be able to vastly decrease my boot time from 33 seconds to... well, less than that.)

LA

[soyabeaner]

It's no hard to get fast boot. Just reformat your computer. By the way, what do you define as the boot time? From your turn on the computer until you can log in?

Until I see the desktop.  If I counted until the the hourglass disappears on the mouse cursor, that would be 2-3 extra seconds.

gpedit has always been useless?

You need to go back to tweak 101 class.  There are lots of things useful to prevent XP from acting acting more bloated that nLite doesn't cover.  Unless you know all 600+ registry settings that reflect gpedit, it's useful.

[Ragwing]

You need to go back to tweak 101 class.  There are lots of things useful to prevent XP from acting acting more bloated that nLite doesn't cover.  Unless you know all 600+ registry settings that reflect gpedit, it's useful.

Where can I read this 'Tweaking 101: How to prevent XP from acting more bloated by using the bloated Group Policy' (in other words, how to configure it, I have never used it)?

[soyabeaner]

http://www.google.ca/search?q=Tweaking+101%3A+How+to+prevent+XP+from+acting+more+bloated+by+using+the+bloated+Group+Policy

[Ragwing]

In other words, you don't know a single good thing with gpedit?

[soyabeaner]

Yes I do but there are too many to lists. e.g. it can prevent:
the desktop cleanup wizard from running
user tracking
how many attempts to terminate the user profile hiving before quiting at shutdown
...
and so forth.  Like I said, without access to gpedit I don't remember all the ones I tweaked with.

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