Bootvis, how to work it??

Hi all,
my pc is kinda slow in booting up, the XP loading bar crosses the screen about 13 times before the login screen appears. It used to be only 3 or 4 times. Now ive heard of bootvis and downloaded it, ran it but no change. Im kinda unsure as to how its propperly used so i would really appreciate some help. even tho i dont restart much it is annoying at the moment cause im updating driver etc so need to reboot all the time.

 

After selecting: Next boot + driver delays, the system reboots, and bootvis tells me it's saving the trace to a .bin file. HOWEVER, rather than getting the results displayed, I get the following error message: Number of physical drives in the trace file is 0. Trace file has invalid system configuration information. Anyone know what's going on and how I can set the number of physical drives to 1 or 2?

 

I dont know bootvis
but this is what i do
1.defrag paging file.
2.msconfig>disable unnecessay startup items.

 

just select "optimize system" under the trace menu.

 

Bootvis is not for the average user.

It is a tool for tech support, and for most people it can create all sorts of problems, or at very best do nothing at all.

Micro$$oft removed the download from their site as too many people were experiencing issues with it, but unfortunately other sites still have it easily available and proclaim it as a cure for just about anything.

 

thanks for the input!

problem is, when i do the "optimize system" thing it reboots and starts up much faster, but only once, afterwards all bootups are as slow as before. it doesnt seem to save the changes...

 

That's what it's supposed to do. The following is how to use it and was taken from another site,

To use Bootvis to optimise your system startup, first start with a full analysis of a fresh boot.

Start Bootvis, go to the Tools menu, and select next boot.

Set the Trace Repetition Settings to 2 repetitions, Start at 1, and Reboot automatically.

Then set the trace into motion. The system will fully reboot twice, and then reopen Bootvis and open the second trace file (should have _2 in the name).

Analyse the graphs and make any changes that you think are necessary.

Once you have made your optimisations go to the Trace menu, and select the Optimise System item.

This will cause the system to reboot and will then make some changes to the file structure on the hard drive.

After this is done, once again run a Trace analysis as above, except change the starting number to 3.

Once the system has rebooted both times, compare the charts from the second trace to the charts for the fourth trace to show you the time improvement of the system's boot up.

The standard defragmenter included with Windows XP will not undo the boot optimisations performed by this application so use it at your own peril.


As you can probably tell, I'm not a huge fan of Bootvis, especially in your case where you want a simple install, run and fix solution.

It can make changes that cannot be undone so use it at your own risk.

 

thanks a lot for ur lengthy input, even tho u dont like bootvis. ill try it out following ur instructions

 

No problems, let us know how you go.

 

To defrag boot files manually,
run>regedit>find the reg value
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOptimizeFunction
Ensure that data for enable key is set to y,
Reboot,this will do an offline defrag,before you are logged in.

 

Rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks

Type this command in the run box
This will initiate xps inbuilt bootfile defragmenter.
This command just makes the os idle feature to run.
Alternately you can wait half an hour without anything.

 

well, i tried to get it to work. probelm is when it reboots the second time it saves the trace file opens up bootvis starts but is closed immediately before i can see or read anything. When i then try to open the saved trace file i get the same error as before:

Number of physical drives in the trace file is 0. Trace file has invalid system configuration information.

and thats that.. i dont get to see the graphs

 

Unless someone here knows how to use it, all I can suggest is to try disabling unneeded services and removing programs from startup to make it boot up faster.

 

ok, well ill just leave it for now.... dont wanna end up having to reinstall winXp and losing all my stuff just to shave a few seconds off my bootup time. thanks anyways

 

That sounds really peculiar coming from someone who has just played Russian Roulette with BootVis.

 

haha, i didnt change any settings tho

 

...and there we have it. The run command does exactly what bootvis performs. No need to fret over bootvis, which isn't that great of a tool to begin with.



If you are patient enough, XP will do it on its own.

http://www.tek-tips.com/faqs.cfm?fid=4518