the ultimate question is this: in the end, which is faster, using this startup delayer or not? I have an autohotkey script tied to a hotkey combo that launches everything at once, and works fine for me on my dual core desktop pc.

qrius

There's also a program called StartRight, which has the same idea: [www.joejoesoft.com]

zkam

I have run the other one in the past and just tried this one, and I don't believe this does much other than be annoying. It takes my PC 10-15 seconds after I get the desktop background to load everything (ObjectDock, Avast, Acronis ect.), and I grant that the PC is pretty doggy during that time. Windows manages the CPU usage and such pretty well however, and there is no disadvantage to loading them all at once. In my testing Windows loads them "all at once" just as fast or faster than "one at a time". Windows handles the memory management and CPU slicing pretty well.

I have found that I am better off waiting the 10-20 seconds. These delayers just make the bootup process take even longer (as you have introduced delays and stretched it out) before the system is behaving normally. I'd rather just wait for 10-15 seconds and then have it run like a scalded cat than to have it be jerky for 30-45 seconds.

jsmorley

This is the way I handle this problem...

1. My computer's BIOS supports autostartup, so I have it set to come on at 7:20AM every day (I arrive at the office at 8AM).

2. I use TweakUI to autologin to the computer. This gets it starting and lets all the startup programs take however long they need to get going.

3. THIS IS KEY. I have a shortcut in my startup menu with a target of: %windir%\system32\rundll32.exe user32.dll, LockWorkStation, which locks the workstation. This way, if anyone tries to power up my computer when I'm not there, they can't do anything.

4. I have a batch program in my startup menu with this command shutdown -s -t 7200 -c "If I'm not here, this computer will shut itself down." -f, which will shut the PC down in 2 hours. That way, if I'm out sick, the PC isn't on all day. Of course, if I'm late, I have 'till 9:20 or so to make it to my desk and abort the destruct sequence with #5...

5. I have a subfolder of Startup called Abort Shutdown, with a batch file in it with the command shutdown -a, which will (duh) abort the shutdown when I click it. The folder is open when I arrive, and the batch file is sitting there, waiting to be clicked on.

So, in the 40 minutes before I arrive, everything gets rolling. While 40 minutes might seem excessive, one of the critical items is that FolderShare fires up and takes everything I did at home last night, and syncs it with my well-rested work PC.

This also works well in the middle of the day when a restart is required. I can fire and forget -- go get a Coke or something, and I don't have to come back just to log in and wait some more. By the time I'm back, it's ready to rock and roll.

tarrkid

I've had this idea for a long time, but I never got around to making it.
Good thing someone did.

Thanks!

bluegene

For virtually 0 footprint I can recommend batch+sleep.exe
Simply google for it (it's about 5kb) and place it in your system32 directory. Then create a txt file and save it as bat and add it to your autostart.

Here's an example:
@echo OFF
sleep 5
echo Starting Synaptics
start C:\Programme\Synaptics\SynTP\SynTPEnh.exe

sleep 10
echo Starting ATI Tool
start /MIN /WAIT "" "C:\Programme\ATITool\ATITool.exe" -s

Add /MIN switch to start a program minimized, add /WAIT to make the batch wait for the program to quit. Works perfectly :)

xeen

wouldn't adding delays actually increase your system's startup time? who cares about smooth, i want fast!

forget this. use BootVis instead.

download: [www.softpedia.com]

tutorial: [articles.techrepublic.com.com]

garbanzo-bean

@qrius: I prefer the "AL ATAQUE" way (run all together), I will try using yours.

afolex

Service Temporarily Unavailable
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.

:(

Cornflakes

@kartal:

I agree that there is some utility in managing the startup "order".

jsmorley

Startup delayer makes inter dependant startup applications more controllable. When you use Truecrypt, some of the start up applications may rely on truecrypt disks. But problem is that you cannot control what starts first or not. So you end up with file opening errors because you were not fast enough to put Truecrypt password. This application makes those scenarios managable!

kartal

Is there a need to shutdown? I just leave mine on just about all the time.

Besides being a bastard who ruins the future of the earth for my children for consuming so much energy, is there really truly a reason to not do so?

greatodinsraven

i did try a similar software once but the result was a slower start-up because you have to "guess" how many seconds takes to start each application otherwise, your CPU "gets a rest" between your start-up apps.

kazoid

I think the idea is not to have a faster startup, as I assume it would actually be slower, however it can slow down the startup of processes that you don't need during the first 3 minutes of startup...

That app that sits in the tray and auto changes your background every hour, yeah it's cool, but does it need to start up at the beginning?

Your Steam account that you use to launch your games, yeah it's useful, but you can't launch the game while other stuff is loading anyway, let it wait until it's turn.

MSN Messenger (or other IM), do you need to be in contact within 30 seconds of starting your computer?

That dictionary tool you have that sits in the tray which you use while browsing and fall onto a word you don't know or need a synonym for... What are the chances of you needing it during the first couple of seconds after startup?

Your advanced mouse settings which allow on-the-fly configuring of your mouse... Let's be honest, you hardly ever use it anyway, but do you EVER during system startup?

Personally I see a HUGE advantage to staling some of these background processes to be able to launch Firefox faster which to be honest is usually the first thing I do when I turn on my computer.

Bobly

Bobly

I've wanted something like this for years and years but I'm so lazy I didn't want to do it the manual way.

If I could hug the creator of this product, I would.

Khaavren

Thanks for posting this, found it excellent as I can delay certain things like Intellimouse, ATI CCC, and some Creative executables 2minutes in as I don't immediately need those on boot up, resulting in a faster boot up time :)

aarste

@Merricat:

I can kinda sorta see your point, but in my experience Steam just bends your computer over the desk and has its way with it no matter when you load it. I still argue that I'd rather just get it out of the way at startup, while I settle in and get my coffee cup just the right distance from my hand then to have it kick in 10 minutes later when I am trying to work on something in Photoshop or editing an Excel spreadsheet or posting pithy comments on Lifehacker. The annoyance factor of having a huge package like Steam just suddenly loading in the middle of something would be unbearable.

Things like Steam I load when I want to play a game. Then I unload them...

jsmorley

I use WinPatrol - [www.winpatrol.com] which does more than just control/delay the start up sequence.

However, in terms of delaying items. I don't do it for the speed boost but to control when the 'heavy' startup programs such as Steam or Vuze start up. These were programs that would essentially lock the machine up while they start if they were in the the normal startup sequence.

I like having a responsive system when I first log in, so I set those up to start 10-15 mins after boot.

By that time, the CPU useage is no longer spiked and even though both start at the same time, they don't freeze everything the way they did when running at boot.

I agree though, for 'normal' startup processes, just launch them all and let it work itself out. You aren't gaining much responsiveness by forcing a bunch of low impact apps to launch sequentially.

Merricat

@Bobly:

If you don't need them at startup, don't load them at startup... Load them when you need them. I understand your point, and it's the same one the authors of these things make, but I don't see it. I would never in a million years have Steam loading on my computer at startup, but if I did, I'd rather get it out of the way and have a snappy computer than have it kick in and bog down my computer 3 minutes later when I am busy doing something. I just don't agree... Snake oil...

jsmorley

This is a great idea--but why does Windoze have to be such a freakin' kludge? Why does all this crap have to load on bootup? Is there a Mac user who can explain whether and to what extent all this crud has to launch at startup for a Mac to boot up.

All I want to do is be able to get to work within 30 minutes of powering up my computer--and when my Wintel machines die in two or three years, bye bye, Windoze.

DangerousLiberal

Rather than specifying when each app should start by delaying them X number of seconds, it would be nice to just have a list "start apps in this order" with a little thingy by each item to specify "- i need this ASAP", "- wait to start until CPU usage falls below XX%", and "- wait until keyboard and mouse are idle for XX seconds" or something like that.

juankovo

@jsmorley:

In my case, I reboot as rarely as possible. Things like Vuze are constantly running in the background so the machine is typically in an 'always on' state.

When I'm rebooting it isn't "my morning routine", but because something came along and needed it. In those cases, the fact that I had to reboot is enough of an irritant that having to wait the 10 min or so for an 'unmodified' startup to finish is the equivalent of Chinese Water Torture.

I do agree that Steam in particular doesn't need to be 'always on', but since I reboot so infrequently, I like having it run at start-up so when I do want to play a game I'm not doing another 30 minute wait while the game I want to play updates. Launching Steam then crushing it when I decide my machine isn't responding quickly enough means less wait and no real performance hit since I only let it sit in the tray when I don't need the cycles.

Merricat

I was just thinking of this yeasterday. Adding the excellent comments on top of that (the lockworkstation thing is a great idea) makes this possibly the best Lifehacker thread I've seen yet.

I can't wait to try this out!

hmhoek

@Merricat:

That's the beauty of computers. We can all roll our own the way we like to work. My only comment would be to hope that when you say you wait 10 minutes for an "unmodified" startup to finish is a bit of hyperbole. I run ObjectDock, Avast, Acronis True Image, AveThumbnail, FileZilla Server (as a service) and a couple of other small utilities I can't remember off the top of my head and my system goes from POST to ready to rock in probably 50-60 seconds. (Still a long time in my opinion) If your computer is taking 10 minutes to boot up, that would concern me...

jsmorley

I might try this out. My computer at work completely locks up on start up until MSN has finished loading. By the time that's done it's thing, I've already got people at my desk looking for responses to emails that I haven't been able to get open yet.

Yeah, I like having those programs start on their own so I don't have to bother doing it myself, but it doesn't need to be immediately on start up.

saffyre9

I think you'd get a march larger performance boost by simply disabling all of the crapware that loads at startup on 99.9% of PCs, a la jusched, QTTask, ipodservice, and iTunesHelper...

danep

@jsmorley: With things such as Steam and Vuze starting at the gate rather than being held back, yes it can take up to 10 minutes for my machine to get to the point where I can do anything with it.

The general problem is, when something like Steam and Vuze, both of which are heavy on disk access during their loading, compete with everything else starting, everything starts just spinning it's wheels waiting for a tiny slice of disk time.

The specific problem I think is that one or more of the programs starting are all attempting to lock a specific resource (no idea what) which means everything blocks till they sort out the sharing schedule between themselves via explorer. As I mentioned, if I hold just Vuze and Steam back and let them launch 10-15 min later, I don't see any performance hit during start up or the 'delayed' start.

It might help to point out that this machine was 'upper-mid range' level when I bought it, in 2003. It isn't a powerhouse by today's standards in any sense of the word.

For instance, if I finish downloading a (insert favorite linux distro) DVD ISO in Vuze, the default action for Vuze to take is to immediately move the file to the 'finished downloads' directory and do a doublecheck that the checksums match the ones provided in the torrent file. A standard 2-3 gig ISO will take approximately five minutes to finish this process. During the process, Vuze is pounding the disk and the CPU hard enough that any other active torrents (up or down)simply stop. Vuze can't keep the connections up while it's doing everything else.

Merricat

@tarrkid: WOW, that's quite the system I like how your files sync up before you arrive at work. I could see myself doing something like this if i didn't work from home.

math0ne

@math0ne: Thanks. I just got a new PC at work a couple weeks ago, and this setup was in my top-5 things to get going on the new machine, along with Firefox, Launchy, and a few other essentials.

tarrkid

Cool. I like it. Took me a few restarts to get the timing right. Great idea!
Long live Lifehacker!

Pulseczar

@tarrkid: My work PC will yell and scream if it is left logged in (even locked) over night, so I have a "Scheduled task" that runs as System. When I'm done for the day I manually start that job. It waits a couple minutes (enough time to log out) then sends the machine to standby. An hour before I get to work there's a scheduled task that will wake it from standby. It runs a scheduled disk defrag, and it gives Mcafee enough time to pound the CPU (as it tends to do for updates) without actually impacting usage of the machine.

@greatodinsraven:
"System Up Time: 53 Days, 0 Hours, 9 Minutes, 2 Seconds"

I rarely boot. I just go into standby when I'm not using the computer for a few hours. Then the machine is usable within 3 seconds of hitting a key. Last I checked my boot time is like 35 seconds.

@jsmorley: Norton can cause computers to take longer than 10 minutes to boot. In one case I saw it take half an hour.

@xeen: Instead of a dedicated sleep program, I'd use the "wait" functionality of Nircmd. One of the many many features it offers. Poor (very poor) man's pause / wait:
ping -n 1 -w 5000 0.0.0.1

johnsmith1234

I love this idea, it should keep the HD from seeking around so much but what can I delay most readily? Sure let Avast start right away, and obviously wait on MSN/Skype, but there are dozens of other stupid little things that sneak in.

ugly

ummm...there's always an option to "don't run on start up" in most programs that you install, so check that and nv worry about it

dnats

@johnsmith1234: Defrag...! That's a good one to add. Especially now where my HD isn't all fragged up YET. A little daily TLC...

tarrkid

I would use Winpatrol for this if I wanted to. But I never saw any improvement over the way Window solves the strartup order.

gvmelle

I just skipped some automatic startup entries creating a batch file ready to run in 1 click only, check my MultiShortcutsLaunch "utility icon" (instructions included):
[www.wincustomize.com]

frankell

Been using this for a while.
My main reason: some of my startup apps in XP weren't showing in the taskbar at all, leaving me no way to control them short of restarting them.
If you have that problem, this will solve it.

Plus, there's an option to show a control panel at system startup which counts-down the seconds until the next app loads. It has buttons to pause, skip or start immediately each app, or stop all-upcoming from loading.

Deemonie

@tarrkid: you are a very smart legend! I am copying this startup method as we speak!

dangermoose

This is a good one for autohotkey, simply run a script with Run and Sleep commands. You can also go further and have a "startup programs" key (on my dell I use the dropdown menu key) to run your statup programs if you need them (I have a lot of work programs I don't always need).

tom999

@greatodinsraven: Updates, repairs, hardware upgrades, yeah and not using electricity unnecessarily.

As for this utility, I would rather not have "eight different applications" simultaneously starting when I load my OS.

thisisasignin

I, like others, have been doing this via a batch script for a good while.

I'll be trying this out though for sure.

spr33

@DangerousLiberal: It is not the operating system's fault. While Windows does load background services (some of which may be unnecessary) it doesn't drastically bog down booting. The problem is third party applications that decide that they have to run something at startup.

The single worst company is shockingly enough Apple. In addition to Apple update (which can be disabled from the application) iTunes runs like 5 background services just in case you happen to have an iPod or iPhone. If you disable them, the next time you load iTunes it will be re-enable them. Then there's a bunch of other terrible programs like Java that decide to run at startup.

If you install decent software, and disable unnecessary startup services, there isn't really a performance problem. That's what I do and I don't have any need for startup delayer. If I did I'd roll my own using a bat file and Nircmd Wait.

@spr33: This application seems to use more resources than a batch file. Surely the last thing you need at startup is to load another RAM hogging app.

johnsmith1234

Been using this for a while... its not hugely smoother.. but the one thing that really used to bog down my pc's startup was Skype... nothing would work until it finished loading.

It also has a mini graphical UI, which shows what its loading and allows you to skip them... I find this as useful as the delay part. If I'm starting the PC to play games or something I can just skip Skype, PDF Quickstart, etc..

Its not an essential utility, but its not bad.

soul_grind

I use Samurize to monitor my system stats and I configured alarms for things like CPU temp, HD temp, etc. For whatever reason Samurize always loads before Speedfan, which provides the temp info, so all the alarms would go off until Speedfan had loaded. Startup Delayer allows me to get around that by delaying Samurize for a bit to allow Speedfan time to initialize.

jluce50

I've been using a PC Mag utility called Startup Cop for years and delayers can be useful.

Trillian behaves like Skype and adding that delay is nice.

Once nice thing about Startup Cop is that when you install an app and it adds something to the startup a pop asks what you want to do. Also you can create profiles and disable startups and since it identifies where its located (user reg/ system reg/ etc...) you can easily track down and move (make a system run at startup just apply to specific user)

Actually PC Mag has a lot of nice utilities and for the modest subscriber fee can be well worth it.

sonicdivx

Finally, someone does this... shouldn't this be something that is built in? This is an obvious problem since Win95 days, and having dual/quad cores don't seem to have helped at all.

ICEBreaker

The only other feature I might add to this is a dialog box (that will go away on it's own) that you can place in the "schedule" so that you could say "don't run any more".

Critical things before the dialog box will always run.
Dialog bog (with timeout) and "delay"
Optional things after the dialog box.

As Bobly said, not everything is needed at start-up, but it's convenient to start them up when the computer boots instead of hunting them down when you need them. So with the "abort option programs" option, you can have speed and convenience.

SQLGuru

@garbonzo bean check out what microsoft had to say about bootvis [www.microsoft.com]

Please note that Bootvis.exe is not a tool that will improve boot/resume performance for end users. Contrary to some published reports, Bootvis.exe cannot reduce or alter a system's boot or resume performance. The boot optimization routines invoked by Bootvis.exe are built into Windows XP. These routines run automatically at pre-determined times as part of the normal operation of the operating system.

If you are an end-user seeking to resolve issues for boot/resume performance on your PC, we recommend that you contact the vendor from whom you purchased the PC. For information from Microsoft on specific issues, you can search Knowledge Base for Windows XP product issues related to "resume time." Knowledge Base is a free information service available at: [support.microsoft.com]];kbhowto

steelew

I'm stupid...My laptop tried to boot from my thumbdrive that I forgot was there. My bad.

steelew

I tried this and it told me there was no bootable partition...more to come. I'm trying my ubuntu.iso CD to try to get in there and fix this.

steelew

Well I finally got to try it out and it took longer than with out it... Uninstalling.

steelew

I guess my previous comment was too atrocious for this site to bear, and was removed. Oh well.

leftist

Perfect. All I need when I start up is my wireless adapter so that I can connect to the internet. I'm guessing that's the single largest reason why my entire startup folder takes so long to process (besides RAM, of course). I can't connect to the internet fast enough, so WLM takes forever to establish a connection and everything else gets bogged down too. Now I can set the programs I don't really need at launch like Apple Updater and Adobe Reader to wait until I'm ready to go (like a minute after startup). WLM itself is set to wait until 30 seconds after startup (which mainly consists of antivirus, firewall, antispyware, and my logitech keyboard and mouse software).

Styyl

how about hibernation?

tiagoclaus

Hmmm. I'm thinking maybe I should give Process Explorer another try. By figuring out which are the useless programs from the useful ones, I can figure out which ones to kill off from the start-up queue and from active work alike.

alphafactor

@tarrkid: I can't say I'm impressed by the proffered program, but your comment is one of the most useful gems I've seen in a long time. I have several mission critical servers that need a regular reboot. I want to have them log in automatically, but I don't dare. Sure, they're in a secure room, but you just don't do that, right? Well, with the lock command, that pretty much covers the last hitch. Thanks!

hnkelley

@hnkelley: Sure! I'm glad you (and a few others) got some benefit!

tarrkid