By: Tibor Schiemann, President and Managing Partner, TuneUp
Boot optimization isn’t rocket science, but PC users, beware! There are a lot of misleading tips that claim to improve Windows’ boot-up time. In reality, however, most don’t effectively reduce it, and some are even dangerous for your system.
Myth Number 1 – Deleting Fonts
For example, many have said that PC users can reduce boot time by deleting fonts. This has been perceived as an effective strategy because it is believed that Windows needs to load fonts into memory upon booting up. I have 282 fonts in a 500 MB folder, so if this were true, loading my font folder would be equal to running several dozen start-up programs during the boot process.
I actually tested this myth by reducing my folder down to 40 system-critical fonts that Windows would not let me delete. I then measured the time it took from turning my computer on to the desktop appearing, and found that deleting the fonts had absolutely no effect on boot time.
There are instances in which PC users have experienced a performance hit due to extensive 10,000+ font collections, but this has likely been due to compatibility issues. And even after looking at the fonts’ time stamps, it was evident that Windows doesn’t access all of the fonts during the boot process.
Myth Number 2 – Delaying Services
Another common Windows boot optimization myth that you should watch out for recommends delaying Windows services using the “services.msc” application and setting the start-up type to “Automatic (Delayed)”. This is because Windows loads a significant amount of services during the boot process, and turning them off without sacrificing critical functionality can be quite tricky.
To test this tip, I changed 17 services on one computer and 20 services on another that were set on “Automatic” to “Automatic (Delayed)”. This time, Windows would not let me alter the start-up of 25 essential system and security services, but I again measured the time it took from turning my computer on to the desktop appearing.
I expected the desktop to show up just a few seconds sooner since Windows didn’t load all of the services into memory at once—but that didn’t happen. Windows was actually so effective in performing simultaneous tasks during the boot-up process that delaying the services prolonged total boot time by four seconds on the first computer and two seconds on the other.
I can see a scenario in which delaying extremely resource-intensive, third-party services might result in slightly better responsiveness right after Windows logs on. But, is it worth having to wait for them? If you’re running services that actually take several seconds to load, chances are they are pretty critical and should be set to “Automatic”.
Myth Number 3 – Boot Menu Timeout
One other piece of bad boot optimization advice I’d like to expose concerns changing the boot menu’s timeout. If you’re running multiple operating systems on one machine, Windows Boot Manager will give you a choice about which one to start after you power on your PC. After 30 seconds, it will select the default operating system entry if you haven’t decided. Some have said that lowering the boot menu’s timeout to three, five or ten seconds will improve boot time.
One question to ask yourself: if you can just press the RETURN key and skip the timeout (or if you’re not there to skip the boot menu’s timeout), why would you care about boot time? Unfortunately, this tip will not help improve boot performance. However, if you would like to change the timeout, use EasyBCD to do it safely.
Myth Number 4 – Use All CPU Cores During Boot-Up
Lastly, it has been claimed that Windows uses only one core during the boot-up process and that PC users should enable all cores to drastically speed it up. To put it simply, this tweak doesn’t work. It is just designed to limit the number of CPU cores for troubleshooting reasons, not to enable more cores; Windows uses all available cores shortly after the first boot-up phase anyway. This myth has even been known to cause the “BAD_SYSTEM_CONFIG_INFO” blue screen of death.
Just for the sake of proving doubters wrong, I performed some benchmarks and measured the time it took from turning my computer on to the desktop appearing. Whether I used the default Microsoft configuration settings or enabled all of my PCs’ cores, boot time remained exactly the same. In any case, PC users should steer clear of this tip.
These are only four of the many Windows boot optimization myths out there. Visit the TuneUp Blog about Windows, where we’ve sifted through misleading tuning information, to learn more and make sure that you are maximizing PC performance.
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