Search the Internet to try and find a program called
Bootvis.exe. It is a utility that was put out by
Microsoft until this summer, when they pulled it from
their server for whatever reason.
After installing you can go into the program and get it
to monitor your next bootup, restart, etc. It analyzes
how long everything takes to load, and provides a graph
chart showing you exactly how many seconds each startup
program is taking. At the very least you can see which
programs are taking the longest to load, and if you set
the program to reboot your computer three or four times
in a row and analyze the data it can then optimize your
startup to ensure a faster boot.
At the very least it can shave ten or more seconds off of
your startup, though some people report it shaving
minutes off of an extremely long load.
Or if you have an older computer, it could just be time
to upgrade. XP absorbs a lot of processing power,
especially SP1...
