Decrease your applications startup time
Links, Freebies, HowTo, Technology, Blogging, Windows, Geeks, Internet September 9th, 2006
Update:
Andrew says the following(and i trust him because my first pc tweak was done with the help from his webite and it went all good) :
If you look at the source of the /Prefetch:1 Myth
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/XPMyths.html
it goes to an article by Ryan Myers who is on the Windows Client Performance Team.
http://blogs.msdn.com/ryanmy/archive/2005/05/25/421882.aspx
This switch is not used to accelerate Windows Media player but rather to not waste extra RAM prefetching unnecessary portions of the media player when those are no in use.
Windows XP already comes with a new feature to accelerate application loads that was not in Windows 2000, ME, 98 ect… called Prefetching. It is already enabled by default and configured optimally. You want to make sure your is working properly since many “tweaking” programs break it. If you are not sure use the Prefetcher Fix to restore it to it’s default and optimal settings:
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/OptimizeXP.html#Tweaks
You also want to make sure your system has plenty of RAM. 512MB should be minimum, I recommend 1-2GB. Now outside of upgrading Hardware such as your Harddrive (the higher the RPM generally the faster it will be) which has the most drastic effect on load times there is not alot else you can do… like elevate said Defrag, I recommend Diskeeper.
Classified as Myth
By default, Microsoft includes the /prefetch:1 switch to speed up it’s Windows Media Player application start time. This switch can be used for other Windows applications and also many third party programs.
Example:
You have AOL 8.0 installed on the computer. Complete the steps outlined bewlo to add the /prefetch:1 switch to AOL’s Target path.
1. Right click on the AOL shortcut and select properties from the menu.
2. In the Target: Field add the /prefetch:1 switch to the very end of the path, like this:
“C:\Program Files\America Online 8.0\aol.exe” /prefetch:1
and then click ok.
Now start AOL. It would load at least 50 times faster than ever before.
Note:This tweak may not work with ever application.In this case,just remove the switch.Source:TweakXp
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Very good tip. It will come in handy with some of those virus programs that take forever to load!
This is a Myth and does nothing:
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/XPMyths.html
Andrew,first…i am a fan of your web site and linked some of your articles in here.Hope that is alright with you.
Second,It might be a myth…but could you give me a tip of how to startup an application faster?
Defrag your harddrive
proberly as useful!
If you look at the source of the /Prefetch:1 Myth
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/XPMyths.html
it goes to an article by Ryan Myers who is on the Windows Client Performance Team.
http://blogs.msdn.com/ryanmy/archive/2005/05/25/421882.aspx
This switch is not used to accelerate Windows Media player but rather to not waste extra RAM prefetching unnecessary portions of the media player when those are no in use.
Windows XP already comes with a new feature to accelerate application loads that was not in Windows 2000, ME, 98 ect… called Prefetching. It is already enabled by default and configured optimally. You want to make sure your is working properly since many “tweaking” programs break it. If you are not sure use the Prefetcher Fix to restore it to it’s default and optimal settings:
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/OptimizeXP.html#Tweaks
You also want to make sure your system has plenty of RAM. 512MB should be minimum, I recommend 1-2GB. Now outside of upgrading Hardware such as your Harddrive (the higher the RPM generally the faster it will be) which has the most drastic effect on load times there is not alot else you can do… like elevate said Defrag, I recommend Diskeeper.
Might seem crazy but i defragment once a week.
I started doing it so often somwhere last year and it makes a huge diference.
Thank you for much for the links and for the explanation.
Carol,
Defragmenting is a good idea but I recommend automating this. You can use the StartDefrag program to schedule the built-in Disk Defragmenter.
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/OptimizeXP.html#Utilities
But I highly recommend Diskeeper which not only defragments more completely and faster but is also completely automated. I have been using Diskeeper for a long time and you never have to manually defragment again.
Oh,i don’t mind doing the maintenance manually.I actually like it.
It can take a little while but that’s no problem.
My Task service is disabled and i want it like that.
Sometimes i use the defrag. tool on TuneXp and force the defragmentation.
Carol,
The Task Scheduler Service is REQUIRED for prefetching to work. You have to leave it on or you are slowing down how long it takes Windows too load and your applications to boot up. Since this service is necessary for Prefetching, it does not harm to schedule the defrag.