Disabling the Boot Logo

You can remove the boot logo that appears when you start Windows XP. This little tweak probably shaves only a few seconds off your boot time but seconds count if you are serious about trying to get Windows XP up and running as quickly as possible. The only negative is that if you remove the boot logo, you will also not see any boot messages, such as check disk.

To remove the boot logo, follow these steps:

1. Select Start/Run, type msconfig, and click OK.

2. In the System Configuration Utility, click the BOOT.INI tab.

3. On the BOOT.INI tab, click the NOGUIBOOT check box option. Click OK.

Speed Up the Dual-Boot Timeout

If you dual-boot your computer with Windows XP and another operating system, you see an operating system selection menu on startup. If you typically boot into Windows XP and not the other operating system, you can speed up the dual-boot timeout value so that you do not wait so long for the boot process to select your default operating system and continue with the boot process. The default timeout value is 30 seconds but you can change this setting to 10. This gives you enough time to select the alternate operating system if you want but also speeds up the boot process. You can skip this section if you do not use a dual-boot configuration.


Follow these steps:

1. Locate the boot.ini file on your computer. It is a hidden file by default; mine is located in C:\boot.ini.

2. Open the file with Notepad (which is what opens it by default).

3. Change the Timeout value to 10.

4. Select File/Save and close Notepad.

Create a Startup Menu Even If You Have Only One OS

Even if you have only one operating system, you can create a boot menu that will let you choose to load your operating system with different parameters.

The boot.ini file is a plain-text file found in your root C:\ folder. You might not be able to see it because it's a system file, and if you can see it, you might not be able to edit it because it's a read-only file. To make it visible, launch Windows Explorer, choose View --)Tools --)FolderOptions --)View. Select the Show Hidden Files and Folders radio button. To make it a file you can edit, right-click it in Windows Explorer, choose Properties, uncheck the Read-Only box, and click.

To edit the file, open it with a text editor such as Notepad.


multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Trace Problems XP Home Edition"/fastdetect /bootlog /sos

This entry creates a startup log and displays information about the drivers and other operating system information as it loads.


For the version of the operating system that loads in Safe Mode but that still allows networking, you could create this entry: multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Safe Start XP Home Edition" / fastdetect /safeboot:network


The boot.ini file would look like this, assuming that you want the menu to display for

30 seconds and you want normal XP startup to be the default:


[boot loader]

timeout=30

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS



[operating systems]

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition"/fastdetect

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Trace Problems XP Home Edition"/fastdetect /bootlog /sos

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Safe Start XP Home Edition" /fastdetect /safeboot:network