The situation. After I enter my password and hit enter, I used to have to wait 30sec to a minute before I could do something because all the other apps were waiting for the startup list to be finised.

After some googl'ing, I found StartDelay (http://www.r2.com.au/software.php?page=2&show=startdelay), this great application allows you to delay the startup of some programs (and thus spreading the load) and it does work super. My firewall (sygate, great stuff, but a real resource hog) is now starting 20secs later, I've spreaded the other app and I can almost immediately start to work after hitting the enter key .

It's realy worth trying.

This sounds like a great idea, I will have to try it out. Although I don’t know if I like the idea of my firewall starting 5 minutes later.

Another thing that may make life better for startup programs is a new feature in Vista. I was listening to one of the Microsoft podcasts and one of the Vista developers was talking about a new “permission” that can be applied to files. It is a low priority load bit. It is basically for programs that do not need to be started immediately (read startup programs).

Nice find. I might try this out later. I mean I don't have a ton of apllications executing on start-up, but it might still help out.

You don't have to let it wait 5minutes, my firewall starts only 30 seconds later, I find it not a problem since I only have a firewall to prevent certain apps from connecting to the outside.
You might be right about Vista, it's actualy what caused me to search for this nice application. In the services part of the management console I noticed that certain services could be started with a delay, I was like ... I need that in XP

hmmm.. sounds like a really neat idea. However, I don't think, it'll make a huge difference.

xboxrulz

Its an interesting peice of work but one must be carefull. It only delays regular programs but it also delays hardware software. So you might have to wait untill everything works. Personally i don't have a problem since i shut off most of the programs using msconfig but its nic to see something new.

I personally don't have a lot of programs starting on my startup on Windows installation, usually I try to avoid to let them start in the startup and I edit the msconfig if there is no such setting, my system boots up quite fast.. And later I just turn everything manually (quite a lot of programs) but as I rarely turn of my computer or rarely restart it, all the apps I need is usually started.. When I need something I just execute it and leave it, I have lots of RAM, so why not

In the olden days, people would tell you to turn of your computer because it might overhaert but with modern coolers it doesn't matter. You might have quite a lot of RAM but why would u want to keep your discs rotating at a constant speed. Remember computers are more then chips they are metal two and metal does wear down. Also, most systems work better after the page file has been cleaned, this is only possible if such a feature is enabled and if windows is rebooted.

Not necessarily, you delay the software you want to delay, so if you don't want to delay the software for your keyboard or soundcard, then it won't be delayed. Even better, it only shows what's in msconfig too and since there's nothing in there that is realy necessary for hardware to work, you'd won't have any problems with it.

@xboxrulz: overhere it realy does make a difference, especialy because my hdd is on the slower side (altough it's only 3 years old), my computer always stalls when there's a lot of disk activity and it does that too on startup.

@Quatrux: that's another method .

@Levis: That's correct, but you make it sound worse than it is . The only moving parts are the hdd and the fans. Fans probably wear down a bit faster, but they only cost a few €, so that ain't the cost. A hdd will run a lot longer, in normal conditions it should be able to run 5-10 years (normal being, no shocks, no overcurrent, no overheating or high temps).