Slow Boot Win XP

[md2lgyk]

New user here, first post.  Using XP Home SP2.  I downloaded MyDefrag and ran the System Disk Monthly script.  Now when I boot my laptop, it seems to take much longer to get to the login screen - more than twice as long as it did before.  What's happening?  I expected it to be faster, not slower. 

[Darlis]

XP uses a feature called "Prefetch" which indexes the files used when booting. If you move the boot files around, you "confuse" Prefetch and it has to index the files again. Therefore the first restart is usually slower.

Also, you should upgrade to SP3 since SP2 is no longer supported by MS,

[Henno]

Hi Darlis,

Is there a way to avoid this behaviour?

regards, Henno.

[Darlis]

Yes: disable the Prefetcher.

I don't think that this is a big deal since this effect is only most noticeable after using the monthly script which moves all files around and which you hopefully don't use more often than once a month. The other scripts move far less files, so you likely won't notice a change in the boot time.

But there is also a way to make Prefetch reindex the files after they have been moved: Execute the following command in the Start > Run dialog:
rundll32 advapi32.dll, ProcessIdleTasks
This updates the prefetch files but it will also rearrange the boot files if you haven't disabled this specific feature. This will also happen automatically every three days.