BootTimer Measures Startup Times for Optimising
Windows XP/NT only: We've shown you how to trim Windows down to the bare essentials and setting up pre-fetching for faster booting, but how do you know if your painstaking changes are having any real effect? BootTimer, a free measurement utility, asks you to restart your computer, then uses system logs to measure the distance between your boot-up screen to Windows log-in. You'll need to enable the program to run without prompting (un-check the "Ask before running this file" option on double-clicking in XP), and there's a small bit of promotion/donation prompting after it's done, but it's much easier than digging through verbose logs with a calculator. BootTimer is a free download for Windows NT and XP systems only.
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@qrius: I am on windows. Neither of those 3 things happen that often for me (I don't have antivirus, too), and when it does I just take a toilet/coffee break =)
Updates for XP hardly come anymore so I'm not too bothered by them too.
One of these days I'm going to get myself a good SSD and rid myself of all the bootup fuss once and for all.
kureshii
oh, and I finally got my ubuntu 8.04 installed on a 2nd hd, so yeah, I would reboot b/c of that too, if I wanted to use linux for something (mostly messing around w/ the new OS).
On a side rant, ubuntu isn't quite there yet for mass public use for the avg person. I would hate the idea of telling my parents how to intall an app in ubuntu. I thought mac was weird w/ the dmg stuff, but man, linux is way too geeky.
qrius
@kureshii: well, if you have windows, rebooting is not really an option. for ex:
-bsod
-install of new windows update
-install of new antivirus update
-uninstall of various apps
yeah, so I do care about my boot time...
I would understand the pain however, if you were an IT admin. :)
qrius
@qrius: Don't worry, some of us are just kidding =)
My machine is in standby much more often than it is in shutdown, so boot times aren'ta worry for me. If it can boot up within a toilet-cum-drinking (not at the same time!) break it's fast enough.
Make it simple, but not too simple. If the useful stuff increases your boot time, leave it in. It's probably better for you in the long run. How often do you boot up, anyway? (If the answer is frequently, just switch to classic mode and turn off all the bells and whistles already)
kureshii
why all the hate? seems useful to me for personal use. I'm picky about my boot time and do wonder if it improves after a defrag or uninstall of some app.
qrius
@xint: Of course you and I know that but the end losers seem to think its us screwing them!
AskTheAdmin
Yeah a boot timer that end users (are they still called that) can see is problematic as already noted above.
On my XP system I've used MS BootVis to get a more detailed look at the boot process. I also use StartupDelayer to separate the time some processes fire up during a boot to reduce I/O contention and to push non-essential crap to the end.
Still takes too long...
BlogsOfSteel
is this better than bootvis ?
vlad6
Do we need more office games?
"Hey Bob, I broke your 1min bootup record!"
"This is the work machine, dumbass! My personal machine does 30!"
"Oh yeah? Try 29.6 for mine!"
[repeat ad nauseam]
kureshii
[1] Whatever happened to stop watches? It seems much easier to time boot up manually than to install a program with ads and donation nags.
[2] And guess what, we are trying to decrease boot up time by streamlining the boot up process (i.e. uninstalling junk), then we go and ruin it all by installing a measurement software.
[3] Booting up to the login screen doesn't take long and is a rather standard procedure. It's what happens after login that needs to be addressed. That's when all those spyware like Real Player kicks in.
Seems like a useless piece of software to me.
ICEBreaker
@AskTheAdmin: Icons, StartUp programs and all the crapware that attaches itself to the network once the computer establishes a connection has absolutely NO effect on the start up time...
...according to stewpid-n00b-slack-off-user.
Can you feel the love?!
LOLOLOOLOLLOL!
xint
@AskTheAdmin: I haven't had a single call today and no one has shown up at my door.
(Block the address of this app at the firewall)
M u w a a a h a h a h a h a !!!
xint
QVC?? What do you take me for?
It would be a lot more likely that I would be on WOOT or ThinkGeek!
And my Intermanet tubes stay unclogged due to our two 100mb Ethernet hand offs. And our robotic centipedes that clean them in between data sessions.
But the users 200 icons on the desktop aren't to blame for the slow start up at all??! Right?
AskTheAdmin
@AskTheAdmin: To that you should reply "It's because you spend too much time on the internet and not doing work so your internet pipes are full and it is slowing down your computer. Get off QVC and get to work."
JiveMasterT
Lets keep this away from my end users ok?
All I need is another 50 calls in the morning saying "How come my machine took 1.36 minutes to start up today and only 1.29 minutes yesterday?" and then following up with the standard - "Can you come over and fix my computer?"
AskTheAdmin