On Jan 30, 1:55 pm, PSRumbagh <PSRumb...@discussions.microsoft.com>
wrote:
> It takes about 4 minutes for my Compaq V2000 laptop to boot-up using WinXP
> Home with SP3. NORMAL boot-up invokes 58 processes, 107 services, 489
> modules, 215 drivers , 25 startup and 29 IP connections. SAFE MODE boot-up
> invokes 12 processes, 107 services, 158 modules, 215 drivers, 25 startup and
> 0 IP connections. I am certain that many of the normal boot-up items are
> loaded for programs that I scarcely use. How do I figure out which of the
> normal boot up items is really needed and which are not needed? If I turn
> off a truely needed program in the Start Up folder can I do damage to my PC?
I would be curious to know how you came these numbers?
Trial and error is a method, but not very scientific, can be
frustrating, involves guesswork and can take a long time.
You can be the first victim of my latest copy/paste:
First perform a scan for malicious software:
Download, install, update and do a full scan with these free malware
detection programs:
Malwarebytes (MBAM):
http://malwarebytes.org/
SUPERAntiSpyware: (SAS):
http://www.superantispyware.com/
They can be uninstalled later if desired.
Reboot.
Since there may be some system configuration changes, you may want to
manually create a System Restore point before continuing.
Have you installed any third party malicious software tools with built
in realtime protection
such as Norton, McAfee, AVG, Spybot, ZoneAlarm, etc.? They usually
install and set themselves
up to load things automatically, check for updates, or scan your
system on every reboot. This
can take a lot of time.
If these programs have any kind of resident realtime protection
enabled you can count on that to slow
your system down.
You can choose to rethink that strategy, adjust their configuration
options or choose to live with the performance hit.
We can find out everything for sure with a program called Autoruns and
then decide what to do without using trial and
error methods. Autoruns will show you all the things you see in the
XP msconfig tool and more.
Autoruns is like the XP msconfig tool on steroids.
Autoruns installs nothing and runs on demand. It will show you things
about your system you
will not see using other tools. Autoruns is safe and will not
uninstall any applications or programs on
your system when you disable them. It just lets you control the
startup of the programs.
Download Autoruns from here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx
Save Autoruns on your system and launch it. When Autoruns finishes
scanning your system, it
will say Ready in the lower left corner of the screen.
You will be looking at the Everything tab which lists every startup
item. It can be a little
intimidating to see all that stuff, so narrow things down a bit.
Click the Logon tab. Under Options, you may can choose to Hide
Microsoft and Windows Entries
so you will only see the items that do not belong to Microsoft or
Windows. Usually that means
you installed them. Be sure to Refresh (F5) when you make any
changes.
You can see the startup items for your logged in user and there are a
lot of things, but some
of the entries are not very interesting at the moment.
In the Logon tab, the entries of interest are:
The Local Machine startup items (HKLM):
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
The Current User startup items (HKCU):
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
The Startup folder for the currently logged in user. For user Jose,
that would be:
C
Documents and Settings\Jose\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
On my system, those three items are completely empty. That may not be
practical for everybody,
but it certainly possible.
You can choose to disable startup items using Autoruns and enable them
again later if something
goes wrong.
You can also choose to delete startup items using Autoruns when you
are sure they can be safely
deleted. Leftover undeleted items will not slow your system down
since they are not loading, but
they can be annoying to look at.
Everything with a checkbox is a startup item that you can manipulate.
Every checkbox with a green
check is an enabled startup item. You can decide if you need the
startup item enabled or not
(perhaps just by looking at it) and if you are not sure what it is,
right click the item and choose
to Search Online.
Here is one place on the Internet to research individual startup
items:
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/filedb/
If you uncheck an item it is only disabled from starting. It is not
deleted from the startup
list until you actually choose to delete it. You can always come back
and enable the item again.
Autoruns does not uninstall any programs. Any changes will take
effect the next time you reboot.
After making changes, reboot and see if you have any new issues that
you can identify as
a result of the changes or if things are better and react
appropriately.
Consider taking some notes while making your changes so you can know
how to undo things if a
problem comes up afterwards. Try not to get confused by making too
many changes at once.
Reboot your system once in a while during the adjustments to see how
things are going. You can
always make more adjustments or undo things later.
You can use this same strategy using the Autoruns Services tab. You
can look at all the Services
or just the non Microsoft services by clicking Options and choose to
hide Microsoft and Windows
Entries and refresh (F5) the list.
You will see all the extra non Microsoft services that are configured
on your system and can decide what
action to take. It is possible to have zero non Microsoft services on
some configurations.
There is an Internet site that has a lot of information about Windows
Services, what they do and
if they can be disabled here:
http://www.blackviper.com/
You can use many methods of timing the system startup before and after
times to see what the adjustments do. There is no guessing. This way
you will know with certainty if things are better or worse and not
just be thinking things are a little better, maybe better, seems a
little faster, might be faster or not really sure...