When you first buy your PC, everything seems to work perfectly. Your PC boots up in 30-35 seconds, and applications run blazingly fast. However, as time progresses, you are bound to notice that the boot time keeps increasing, slowly but surely. True, this is not a serious problem that can cause harm to your PC, but do you really feel like spending 5 minutes staring at the screen every time your PC boots? Won’t it be better if your PC booted up just as fast as it did when you first got it? Here are a couple of quick fixes that can indeed speed up the booting of your system to a good extent:
Prevent unnecessary programs from loading at startup
It is time to streamline your startup process. So, click on Start button, and then on Run. Type msconfig in the box and click Ok. The System Configuration Utility will open, in which you need to select the option named Selective Startup on the main window. Then, click on the tab named tab named Startup. You will come across a list with a lot of checkboxes. Uncheck the boxes besides any application that you do not think you need any more. Microsoft Office would be one of the options, and do not forget to uncheck the names of any CD-burning utility (Nero, InCD, etc.), graphics software (Photoshop, for instance), and any product from Adobe. These programs are undoubtedly necessary for various tasks, but do not need to be loaded at boot time.
Be careful not to uncheck the boxes for antivirus software or spyware removal tools though. Once you are done, click on Apply, and then on Ok. You will be prompted to reboot your system. Do so, and you should notice a considerably faster startup process. Remember, this process will not uninstall any software. It will merely prevent it from loading up at startup, thereby speeding up the booting process.
Clear out the Prefetch folder
A clogged up Prefetch folder can greatly slow down the booting process. Clear it up periodically by visiting the folder located at C:\Windows\prefetch. Remove all entries of programs that you do not need to be loaded during boot time. Yes, you should do this even if you have used the System Configuration Utility.