Making Windows XP start faster

Here are some tips and tricks to fast start your Windows XP:

(http://www.bloganything.net/221/make-windows-xp-boot-faster-part-1.html)
First trick: Make your system do a boot defragment. This will put all the boot files next to one another on your hard disk. When boot files are in close proximity to one another, your system will start faster. On most systems, boot defragment should be enabled by default, but it may not be on yours, or it may have been changed inadvertently.

To make sure that boot defragment is enabled on your system, run regedit.exe from the Run dialog box. Find this registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOptimizeFunction. Edit the Enable string value to Y if it is not already set to Y. Exit regedit.exe and then restart your computer.

(http://www.pc-speed-up.com/)
The next step only applies to those systems with only have one HDD on their primary IDE channel (nothing else on device 0 or 1) and a CD-ROM and/or DVD-ROM on the secondary IDE channel.

Each time you boot Windows XP, there’s an updated file called NTOSBOOT-*.pf who appears in your prefetch directory (%SystemRoot%Prefetch) and there’s no need to erease any other files as the new prefetch option in XP really improves loading time of installed programs. We only want WindowsXP to boot faster and not decrease its performance.

1. Open notepad.exe, type “del c:windowsprefetch tosboot-*.* /q” (without the quotes) & save as “ntosboot.bat” in C:

2. From the Start menu, select “Run…” & type “gpedit.msc”.

3. Double click “Windows Settings” under “Computer Configuration” and double click again on “Shutdown” in the right window.

4. In the new window, click “add”, “Browse”, locate your “ntosboot.bat” file & click “Open”.

5. Click “OK”, “Apply” & “OK” once again to exit.

6. From the Start menu, select “Run…” & type “devmgmt.msc”.

7. Double click on “IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers”

8. Right click on “Primary IDE Channel” and select “Properties”.

9. Select the “Advanced Settings” tab then on the device 0 or 1 that doesn’t have ‘device type’ greyed out select ‘none’ instead of ‘autodetect’ & click “OK”.

10. Right click on “Secondary IDE channel”, select “Properties” and repeat step 9.

11. Reboot your computer. WindowsXP should now boot REALLY faster.