Using Microsoft BootVis (Windows XP)

[Elliot B.]

  Overview said:

Bootvis is a tool for easily enabling capture and graphical display of boot and resume performance trace data in Windows XP.? Bootvis by itself will not change a system's boot or resume performance.? Bootvis is intended as an aid to allow designers and manufacturers to characterize their system's performance during Windows startup in order to identify areas for further investigation and opportunities for performance improvement.

Bootvis can be used to analyze Windows XP startup performance from all off or sleep states, including:

System cold boot (power on from the ACPI S5 state)

Resume from hibernate (the ACPI S4, or "suspend to disk" state)

Resume from standby ( the ACPI S3, or "suspend to RAM" state)

Difficulty: Easy

I will show you how to use Microsoft BootVis to speed up your systems bootup and shutdown times. First of all, download the latest version of Microsoft BootVis (v1.3.37.0) from here or here.

Now, install and run it. The opening screen is simple, and blank. To start...

• STEP 1 - Ensure all of the tickboxes on the left are ticked
  
• STEP 2 - Click on thTraceb> menu at the top, and choosNext Boot + Driver Delaysb>
  
• STEP 3 - ClicOKb> then thReboot Nowb> button. When your computer restarts, dnoti> click on anything until BootVis opens and closes (wait around 1 minute).
  
• STEP 4 - When it has appeared and gone, re-open BootVis.
  
• STEP 5 - Click on thTraceb> menu at the top again, and choosOptimise System.b>
  
• STEP 6 - ClicReboot Nowb>, and when your computer restarts, dnoti> click on anything until BootVis opens and shows a small window explaining what it's doing. It has finished when the box closes.
  

All done! Your computer will now bootup (and hopefully shutdown!) quicker.

Edited June 7, 2004 by King Mustard

[fuel925]

nice, my computer is on 24/7 so I dont boot up or down much, but ill give this a try :)

[morganpugh84]

Umm maybe you should check http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/syspe...ot/BootVis.mspx

  Quote

Please note that Bootvis.exe is not a tool that will improve boot/resume performance for end users. Contrary to some published reports, Bootvis.exe cannot reduce or alter a system's boot or resume performance. The boot optimization routines invoked by Bootvis.exe are built into Windows XP. These routines run automatically at pre-determined times as part of the normal operation of the operating system.

[Elliot B.]

Oh well, I tried.

[DELTA75329]

So Windows XP essentially has it's own version of bootvis already integrated?

Cool! :)

[KzR]

If BootVis is built into WinXP, why doesnt the boot time improve with each reboot I do? ;)

[dougkinzinger]

Because it's not supposed to. Windows XP already loads the GUI quite fast, how much faster do you want it? :rolleyes:

[dL]

  dougkinzinger said:

Because it's not supposed to. Windows XP already loads the GUI quite fast, how much faster do you want it? :rolleyes:

I want instant :D

dL

[Nathanael]

  dL said:

I want instant :D

dL

That will happen when there will be faster CPUs and memory, but with your specs its quite impossible.

[blueshirt]

Or if you want instant, don't shut down your computer at all.

[Bizkit]

I just never shut down the computer, or when I do, I start it up, take a ****, then its on when I come back.

[Rahul]

cant really notice a difference , maybe its all in your head

[ctebah]

  Quote

Please note that Bootvis.exe is not a tool that will improve boot/resume performance for end users. Contrary to some published reports, Bootvis.exe cannot reduce or alter a system's boot or resume performance. The boot optimization routines invoked by Bootvis.exe are built into Windows XP. These routines run automatically at pre-determined times as part of the normal operation of the operating system.

quote from microsoft.com

[clonk]

Haha even your quote said it King Mustard :)

  Quote

Bootvis by itself will not change a system's boot or resume performance.

Oh well, no biggie. I was under the impression bootvis could speed stuff up too, heck it was posted on the front page saying so a while back.

[carmatic]

wow the version number is very... elite

anyway bootvis doesnt kinda work for me, i choose trace ---> next boot + driver delays, and i try to reboot... and then my computer gets stuck forever on the windows boot screen, have to press the reset button and get windows to use previous good configuration... the first time i did this, it gave a blue screen of death, had to try to go into safe mode and restart the computer

right now if i run bootvis it will stop the booting up of windows, have to press the reset button and choose last known good configuration, and then one minute after the boot up of my computer i will get the dialog box asking about the traces, but if i click on either the ok button or the close button, i get some cannot find boot + driver delays . bin file ... and now my computer's all sluggish as well, like clicking on my desktop to get rid of the start menu , i click, then have to wait for half a second for the start menu to go away

[Pallab]

I prefer Zoom.It may not be freeware but worked(I say "worked" cause previously I had a p3 p33mgh and then it gave me a noticable speedup..but onmy current AMD Athlon 3000+ 64 bit the diff is not noticable..btw,Hare also helped speeding up my sys a lot)) for me.

[XavierHyde]

BootVis did have some effect prior to SP1, and at that time Microsoft's website also gave detailed instructions for its use and said it would improve performance. It was still a tool for OEM's, but it was publicly available and proven effective. On my XP "gold" it reduced my boot time from 45s to <25s. In SP1 the boot optimization was built into XP as is now stated on Microsoft's site.

So in a way this guide is correct, but it's only really useful for those still running XP "gold", which should be none. If anyone is still running XP "gold", they should seriously consider upgrading to SP1 (or SP2, if available in their language) ASAP, instead of just tuning the old XP. SP1 and newer basically tunes itself, at least when it comes to defragmentation stuff.

[insanekiwi]

never been a fan of bootvis. driverheavens tunexp for me :yes:

[XavierHyde]

  insanekiwi said:

never been a fan of bootvis. driverheavens tunexp for me :yes:

BootVis and TuneXP do completely different things. TuneXP is a tweaker, that is, it automates various registry hacks and stuff like that. BootVis analyzes the layout of the files required at boot, defragments and optimizes those files and tunes the loading order. In SP1, that functionality was moved inside the Windows system files so the boot tuning is now performed automatically as part of the defragmentation process.

[S.MULLA]

to decrease shutdown times i just change the end task timing form 10000ms to 50ms in the registry. saves me around 5-6 secs shutdown time. :)

[Piepke]

wow 50ms? That's little. I have mine set to 3500, it used to be on 20000

[e4ymod]

:laugh: LOL

Did anyone notice the version? v1.3.37.0

BootVis is 1337

P.S. I'm really bored at work so anything is funny to me at this point

[futb0l]

  e4ymod said:

:laugh: LOL

Did anyone notice the version? v1.3.37.0

BootVis is 1337

P.S. I'm really bored at work so anything is funny to me at this point

yeah - there was a post before you :p

[Banzai]

how much of a difference can it make to the boot speed?

[cal2002]

Bootvis itself doesnt make your bootup any faster, it just traces it.