Question:
Launch Speed
Ok, I have a noob question and a lack of patience.
What determines the launch speed of applications? It seems to me that whatever I launch, be it Firefox, Explorer, Word, or whatever, that the speed at which it opens is not any faster on my fast notebook than on my slow desktop.
BTW, I'm running XP on both computers and they both have 7200rpm hard drives. The notebook has 2GB of memory and the desktop only has 512MB.
How can I make things open faster?
Answer:
Re: Launch Speed
Do you have Vista? If so, try using ReadyBoost w/ an SD card
Answer:
Re: Launch Speed
Yes, or try Readyboost with a flash drive.
Answer:
Re: Launch Speed
I don't have Vista. Any advice for XP?
Answer:
Re: Launch Speed
You could try:
Scanning for spyware
Defrag hd
clean out junk and registry
Bootvis (shortens boot time)
Start menu --> run --> msconfig --> uncheck all the unnecessary programs under start up
Answer:
Re: Launch Speed
And check your prefetch settings, also clear out your prefetch folder.
Answer:
Re: Launch Speed
The main bottleneck is likely to be the harddrive. There's just not that much to do about it, the application needs to load everything off the harddrive initially. That takes time.
Both XP and Vista tries to "predict" what you might load, and preload it (although Vista does it far more aggressively), but fundamentally, there's not that much more you can do. Make sure the files aren't fragmented. And maybe just don't close the applications. Leave them open so they stay in memory.
Answer:
Re: Launch Speed
The main bottleneck is likely to be the harddrive.
Very true.
Hard drive speed and defraggind your hard drive are the only things you can do to improve that. RAM won't really make a difference unless you are running 5+ applications and processor speed most likely won't make any difference at all.
Matt
Answer:
Re: Launch Speed
Try and eliminate as many resource hogging software (Norton being a prime example). This should result in an increase in overall performance.
Answer:
Re: Launch Speed
Oh yeah, forogt to mention. You might want to turn indexing off. Do this by:
1) Right-click on your hard drive (Default: C drive)
2) Click 'Properties'
3) Uncheck 'Allow Indexing'
4) Click 'OK'
5) On the first error it gives click 'Ignore All'. I believe it throws this error because system files are in use.
Matt