startup

Speed Up Slow Firefox 3.5 Windows Start-Ups

9:30PM Kevin Purdy | Firefox 3.5 pulls data from certain file locations for randomised security purposes. Sometimes, though, that can lead to annoying slow start-ups in Windows. You can speed things up by cleaning out certain folder locations. More »

Boot Ubuntu 9.04 In 18 Seconds (With A Solid State Drive)

11:00PM Kevin Purdy | Google webspam wrangler Matt Cutts treated himself to a solid-state hard drive—the kind made from memory chips—and timed a customised boot of Ubuntu 9.04. It was up and running Firefox in about 18 seconds. More »

BootRacer Checks Your System’s Boot Speed

6:00AM Lifehacker US Edition | Windows only: Startup timer utility BootRacer checks your startup speed between reboots, eliminating the need to hold a stop watch while tweaking your machine for faster boot speeds. Once installed, testing your boot speed is as simple as launching BootRacer and clicking the Race It button, which will prompt you for a few settings and then reboot your machine. By default the application is set to run at every boot and display your results with a tray icon balloon, but that can be easily changed in the settings. Once you’ve got your baseline timing, you should use Gina’s complete guide to speeding up your PC’s startup to increase your rating—and more importantly, your boot speed. BootRacer is a free download, Windows only. The utility only worked on Windows XP in my testing, but Windows Vista is supposed to be supported—so if you get it working, let us know in the comments. BootRacer [via Shell Extension City] More »

Tweak Windows Startup Items To Improve Performance

2:00AM Lifehacker US Edition | The Windows Vista for Beginners tutorial site walks through tweaking your startup items to improve performance—a common practice, but this time with a helpful twist. Most of the techniques are nothing new to Lifehacker readers (see Gina’s complete guide to speeding up your PC’s startup), ranging from trimming startup applications to using Startup Delayer to keep everything from starting at once, but this guide goes the extra mile, attempting to answer the often unaddressed question: What should I disable? The post is geared towards the less tech-savvy, but could be helpful for anybody as a resource to share with others that don’t have the know-how but are tired of slow startup speeds. Streamline your Startup Applications & Improve Windows Performance [Windows Vista for Beginners] More »

Windows 7 Beta Boasts Sub-30 Second Boot Time

11:40AM Gina Trapani | The latest Windows 7 beta offers an even speedier startup than its predecessor: for me the beta boots to a fully functional desktop in under 30 seconds, faster than the preview. More »

Disable Startup Stops Unwanted Apps From Creating Startup Entries

4:00AM Adam Pash | Windows only: Free application Disable Startup keeps just any old app from adding itself to your list of startup applications, keeping your boot time snappy and RAM happy. At its core, Disable Startup is a startup manager similar to the built-in Windows System Configuration Utility. It does the trick if you just want to use it for that, but it’s really nothing special strictly as a startup manager. If you’re willing to run Disable Startup in your system tray (which will cost you about 4MB), it’ll closely monitor your startup applications for new additions. The app gives you the option to disable all new startup entries, warn you when new startup apps are added, or allow any new additions. Likewise, Disable Startup can prevent new software installations from changing your IE start page. It may not be worth the added system tray app for some, but if you install a lot of software that ends up sneaking entry after entry into your list of startup apps, this simple utility is perfect. Disable Startup is a free download, Windows only. Disable Startup [via Life Rocks 2.0] More »

What Your Computer’s Doing While You Wait

9:14AM Gina Trapani | Software developer Gustavo Duarte explains exactly what your computer does while you wait, in a thorough, technical answer to the question “Why the hell is my computer taking so long to do something when I have such a fast processor?” This post isn’t for anyone who glazes over at measurements of throughput in nanoseconds at the component level of a computer. If you want to speed up your computer by giving it less to do, make sure you’re running only the stuff you need clean up your startup. More »

Track Down Startup Programs And Processes With A Comprehensive Guide

10:00PM Kevin Purdy | If you’re stumped trying to figure out where a rogue background process on your Windows system came from, and what it does, the Los Angeles Free-Net’s web site will likely have your answer. On a page meant to help volunteer mentors of the non-profit ISP, there’s seriously comprehensive list of programs and processes, easily searched with a Control-F text find. It’s based on the well-linked PacMan’s list, and combined with the more system-based Process Library database, there’s not a listing in Task Manager that can’t be identified and dealt with swiftly. For a guide to getting built-in process lookups and more details on what your system’s running, try our guide to reclaiming memory by mastering Windows’ task manager. Thanks, kgeissler!. Startup Programs and Executables Listing [The Los Angeles Free-Net] More »

The Complete Guide To Speeding Up Your PC’s Startup

4:30AM Gina Trapani | You just hit the power button your PC, and now you’ve got enough time to fetch coffee for the entire office—because that’s how long it takes for your computer to go from “on” to “ready to work.” If your PC’s bogged down by a bunch of programs that automatically start up when it does, it can take forever to get started every morning. Without a major hardware upgrade, there’s not much you can do to cut the time it takes for Windows to actually boot—but you can trim and tweak the amount of time it takes for your desktop to get to a working state. Let’s take a look at a few ways you can cut your Windows’ desktop’s loading times using built-in utilities and third-party tools. More »

Startup Delayer Staggers Your Startup Apps for Smoother Loading

6:00AM Adam Pash | Windows only: Free application Startup Delayer staggers the applications that launch when you login to Windows by user-defined increments. The reason: To mitigate the common startup bottleneck caused by all of your startup applications fighting to run at the same time. You’d never try launching eight different applications simultaneously under normal circumstances and expect your computer to handle it well, so why should your startup apps be any different? To use it, just drag applications to the delay bar at the bottom of the window. You can visualize the time between the launch of different apps and drag-and-drop the delays until you’ve got the perfect spacing. More »