Extremely slow startup (XP Pro SP2)

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Hi

I’ve recently started to experience a considerable slowdown in the time it takes to start up. This is while the tray is being populated – battery and Zone Labs show but then there is a delay of 2 to 3 minutes before any other icons show. Windows Task Manager processes shows nothing out of line from what I expect with System Idle Process showing 99% CPU for much of the time. Although I’m not sure, the delays may have started after one of the Windows updates.

Svchost appears from time to time so my first thought is a problem loading services. Is there a program around that will log this period of start up and let me see if there is a process causing the delay?

I’m using a fast HP laptop with 1 Gb memory and a new 120 Gb drive (cloned by TrueImage from a smaller one).

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David, maybe someone else knows of something, but other than task manager, I don’t know of anything else you can do to tell you which of your startup programs is “trying” to load when you see this long delay. It could be any one of your TSRs that may have been updated. Then again, as you said, it COULD be Windows itself. I’m pretty up to date and I haven’t noticed any slowdown because of Windows updates.

I think you may have to take the (possibly) long route by using MSCONFIG or some other utility of your choosing to turn off all startups to see if the problem goes away. If so, it then becomes a trial-and-error process of turning them back on, one at a time, until you hopefully catch the culprit. BTW, Zone Labs did something of an update nature on MY computer this morning and I have no idea what it was, so they could possibly be the culprit. You’ll have to play detective to see for sure.

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Hi Al and others

I also couldn’t find Bootvis and ended up downloading it from another site. I ran it but can’t say I really understand its readout. In any case it ‘reports’ BEFORE the problem occurs and so is not giving any information about what my computer is doing whilst the delay is happening.

My problem appears to be that in fact NOTHING is happening. I’ve been watching the task manager graph and, apart from a couple of small spikes (which might be caused by task manager itself), CPU usage registers 0% from the point after Zone Labs fires up to the computer continuing its startup. I’ve tried disabling Zone Labs and this makes no difference. I’ve also uninstalled ActiveSync which appears to be the next program/service to load. Again no difference.

I’m therefore stumped. I suspect I now have to wade through all the services, as Al suggests, disabling and enabling until I find what is causing it. Its just a pity that there is no sort of timed log file to tell me what the computer is doing at the time.

Regards and thanks

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David,
Microsoft had released a boot performance tool to show but NOT fix slow boot time.
Get it at BOOTVIS

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OK Bob, when I follow your link, where the is the BOOTVIS? The link detail and the page it takes me to are very confusing…

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According to Fast Boot / Fast Resume Design, BootVis is no longer available from Microsoft. It’s still available for download from many other sites, for example MajorGeeks.

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Thanks Hans. When I had trouble with Bob’s Link and saw that he wasn’t online any longer, I too found BOOTVIS at Major Geeks and tried it out. I’m pretty stupid I guess because even after running it, I’m still in the dark. It didn’t give me any report or information I can see and I have no idea what the heck it did, if anything. I was expecting a file or a log of some kind I guess.

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Did you set it to trace the next boot, and did you then restart your PC?

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Yes to both, but after doing so, I don’t see anything to look at.

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When I tried it, after Windows restarted BootVis first displayed a message just above the taskbar asking for patience, and when booting was completely finished, it displayed a graphical representation of when each process started, how long it took and how much processor capacity it used. I don’t know why it doesn’t work for you…

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Al,
Scroll down to near the bottom of the page where it says “download bootvis.exe”?
Works for me?

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Yessir, I did that and it takes me here: WHDC – Windows Hardware Developer Central

But, like Hans, I got it from MajorGeeks and don’t know what to make of it (see above).

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Beats me, Al.
Now I go to the same site as you did.
Oh well, Major Geeks does work.

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Something strange there Al. When I click on Bob’s link, it takes me exactly to where it’s supposed to – certainly nowhere near the link that you posted ???

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Yep – I got the TuneXP page as well but I didn’t then follow the Bootvis link.

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I didn’t want to make this post until David checked back in to see where HE stands. After all, this is his thread and the problem he’s trying to solve. Keep us posted, David.

Now, I tried looking all over my drive to see if I just missed something at startup and couldn’t find any trace files concerning Bootvis at last reboot. So I rebooted this morning and still nothing! I just noticed in the Help file that it looks like the program runs on a COLD BOOT, or from standby or hibernate. Are you fellas who are getting tracing info doing a cold boot by chance? I’m gonna try that next and if it doesn’t work, there’s something keeping Bootvis from running on my Win XP MCE system.

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Maybe you have tried this already, but are you sure ‘you’ are not looking for network connections/mapped drives which are no longer available?

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Got it guys! Wireless Zero Config service was set to manual! I’ve made it automatic, as I thought it was, and startup is back to its normal state of sluggishness.

Now that raises two questions … how the h**l did that get changed? and what else might have been changed? Anybody point me to a good list of recommended service settings?

Many thanks for your help

Regards

David

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It’s a long time ago I tried BootVis (and concluded it was useless), so I don’t remember whether I did a warm boot or a cold one.

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Al,
When I downloaded this tool way back 2002, before it was withdrawn, there were two downloads, the tool and a document:
BootVis-Tool.exe, archive size aprox. 328 kB
fastboot-winxp.exe, archive size aprox. 377 kB, both self-extracting archives.

The first included BootVis.exe, the second a document “Fast System Startup for PCs Running Windows.doc”. Guess most people, at that time, just went for the tool, and did not bother to look for the documentation.

I have not looked at the Major G. download to see if it includes any documentaion.

I don’t know, but maybe it could be something as you say related to Win XP MCE. The bootvis version I have, I have not run for maybe 4-5 years, and it was developed before SP2.

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Once more I’ll say that since David has figured out what the solution to his problem is, I’ll make another comment in this thread, just in case Bob or some other Lounger wants to comment.

There isn’t any separate documentation that I can find. The Help and Readme files with the program are useless. I did figure out that, in order to get something out of the program, you have to run Bootvis, ask it to do a trace and THEN allow it to reboot your machine. It DOES then do whatever it has determined to be a startup trace, but it turns out to be useless and much less than informative! The several graphs available in the resulting trace told me NOTHING about the drivers or programs that startup when my system boots. I was particularly interested in seeing something about Zone Alarm, QuicKeys, ClipMate and a couple of other startups I run. Nada!

Headed now for the uninstall selection…

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Hello Al.
I agree with you and Hans that the “tool” has limitations, it was just a comment from me what I found when I downloaded the tool etc. originally. So my reply to your post was also to other Loungers.

And Al, I hope you did not misunderstand my comment about the documentation, what I meant was that at that time all the fuss was about the tool, and very few mentioned that it was aimed for system builders, and that the built in performance optimisation in XP is many times all needed.

I am glad the OP found a solution.

Since the tool has been discussed in the thread I can just add some quotes from the doc, as general info for anyone:
[indent]

---

Windows XP has the ability to trace boot and resume metrics and dump the resulting information to a binary file for viewing and analysis.
Bootvis.exe displays several time-interlocked graphs showing CPU Usage, Disk I/O, and Driver Delays, Boot Activity overall, Process Starts, and Resume Activity.

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[/indent]
So it is a tool to display this information (boot visualiser?). What can be done when it comes to boot time optimisation is already built in to Windows XP. As we know XP was designed to do this self-maintenance, at regular intervalls.
[indent]

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IMPORTANT: The Bootvis tool is provided to help you develop a general idea of where there may be issues or problems with boot or resume. They [sic] graphs may provide information that will help idenify [sic] where to use more specific development tools. Bootvis.exe will not specify the exact fixes that need to be made; it should only be used as a tool to help locate or identify potential problem areas.

---

[/indent]
The aim was to guide system builders, not improve performance for end users.

And actually, the doc I mentioned in my other post, is available at the Windows Hardware Developer Central; the site that was mentioned in the discussion about Bob’s link. (then of course the tool is missing).

Hans has already mentioned the old page for Bootvis.exe

From this System Performance page http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/sysperf/default.mspx%5B/url%5D one can click on “Fast System Startup for PCs Running Windows XP” to get the white paper I mentioned.

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Ditto for me too Al. Bob’s link takes me to a Bootvis download page.

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