One of the big complaints I hear about Windows Vista is that it takes a long time to boot. Some users mistakenly believe that because the desktop has appeared that Vista is ready to go. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Speeding up Windows Vista startup is more complicated, since Windows Vista is doing a lot of background work to ready the operating system for …well… operating. Meanwhile, you can do a few tasks, but Windows Vista is unresponsive until it finishes its housekeeping.

Getting Windows Vista To Boot Faster

So how do you get Windows Vista to boot up faster? There are some things you can do to cut the amount of lag time between the appearance of the desktop and true system readiness. Windows Vista is designed to figure out those applications and services that you use most and load those first. Being highly consistent in the way you used Windows Vista could potentially lead to some efficiency, but if you’re like me, sometimes you don’t stick to the script when you start up your computer.

Fortunately, there are other things you can do to speed up Windows Vista at startup. When you load applications, be wary of the ones that put an icon in the system tray for you. These apps have a good potential to slow your system to a crawl. Go into the properties panel for each application and determine whether it’s loading at startup. Do this for your utilities, too. You can still keep the system tray icon, but if you don’t load your app at startup, you’ll start up faster! You can still manually load the program when you need it.

Windows Defende and MSCONFIG can also help you determine what’s loading at boot time. Evaluate each application or utility. Keep things like your A/V, anti-spyware/-malware programs running all the time. Most other things don’t really need to be running at startup. You can experiment with different startup configurations. If you find that you’ve shut something off and really, really miss it. You can put it back in your startup routine with the understanding that you’ll be waiting a little bit longer after you pres the power button to start up.

Another trick to finding out what’s running is to use the Task Manager immediately after the computer boots and before you open any applications. The Task Manager can tell you what’s running and can help you identify any offenders that may be slowing your computer’s boot time.

Photo Credit: Mariano Ortuño, via Flickr