If you’ve owned your computer for more than six months, it’s more than likely that it’s taking longer and longer to start up every time you press the “On” button. With the newer Windows 7 operating system, it generally takes between 30 and 50 seconds from bootup until the login screen (where you enter your username and password) appears. Once you’ve entered your credentials, it may take another minute or so for your computer to be ready to use. That’s a total of at least 90 seconds! That may not seem like long, but the seconds can drag on.
And remember, as a rule, the older it is, the longer it takes your computer longer to start up.
So, what causes slow Windows startup times?
One cause of slower startup times is the number of new programs you’ve installed in your computer since you bought it. Every time you add a new program, new files are added to the system registry. The more registry files there are, the slower it can take for a computer to start up. Registry files also become “fragmented” or dispersed inefficiently throughout the system, and this can also slow computer startup speeds.
So regularly maintaining your registry may help speed things up at startup.
As well, every time you download and install a new software program, that program will generally “run at startup” by default. Popular programs such as Skype and Adobe Acrobat are (infamous) for this. The more programs that run at startup up, the slower the process will become.
So, it’s a good idea to periodically review what software programs are “launching” at startup, assessing which are necessary and which are not, and then ensuring the unneeded programs only start when you want them to, rather than automatically whenever you press the “On” button on your computer.
However, managing startup programs is not a simple task – you need to know what you’re doing. For one thing, you need to be familiar with the Windows “command line” to access the startup control panel. Plus, if you’re not that familiar with the Windows OS, it’s never a good idea to deselect startup programs that you think are unnecessary. Some startup programs are necessary for your computer to work, and if you remove them you may do significant harm to your system that can quite costly to fix.
Not to brag, but PC TuneUp Maestro helps safely speed up Windows startup times. It helps you discover the origin and the purpose of each startup application , and then make informed decision about pausing or removing unnecessary startup items.
It’s all part of improving PC performance.