Boot Vista faster using multiple processor cores
If you have been disappointed with Vista’s performance on your brand new dual or quad-core PC then this may help. The default settings for Vista have it boot using just one processor core. Using both or all four cores may help speed things along.
Before proceeding know that this may not improve your boot time at all. Winhlp says it may also cause some systems to require reactivation. This is also not for the novice user. Make sure to change it only as specified and not to mess around with other settings.
Here are the step by step instructions courtesy of Winhlp,
- Click on: [Start]
- Click on: Run…
- Type in: msconfig
- Click on: [OK]
- Click on the tab: Boot
- Adjust the number of cores to the number your processor actually has.
- Click on: [OK]
Of course, the boot speed is more dependant on the speed of your hard drive than anything else. About the only difference I was able to notice is that the desktop loaded instantly and I do mean instantly after the login screen was displayed.
Startup programs also loaded slightly faster. Some users report that Windows Mail will load faster after this tweak is applied but that has nothing to do with booting and makes little to no sense.
One would think that Microsoft would be able to code Vista to use however many processor cores are available by default. But then, there are many manual tweaks that have to be applied to Vista to get it running just right. What’s one more?
SP1 improved Vista slightly but it still has a long way to go before it reaches XPs level. Let’s hope Microsoft sees reason and decides to keep XP around for a while longer.
If the tweak worked (or didn’t) for you, feel free to let us know below.
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June 25th, 2008
At first, I didn’t notice any change. I even thought that it loaded a little slower. But after the second or third boots, I did notice a little more speed as far as the desktop coming up and certain startup programs loading faster (or at least preventing them from freezing my computer while they loaded, which is always nice).
Thanks for the tweak Jon
July 17th, 2008
Works for me. I use HP Pavilion DV9657em and i had problem before with noise (cooling) when BOOT was starting and now problem disappears. By the way – THANK YOU FOR YOUR WORK. Cheers from Poland
September 1st, 2008
I actually stumbled on this trick whilst switching to the so-called “hidden” boot screen, and well, I can’t help but mess with things. All I noticed was the desktop starting much quicker. Still, every second shaved off of Vista’s bootup time is a welcome improvement.
September 7th, 2008
Horrible experience with changing to 4 processors! I cannot get my system to boot at all. It goes into a continual reboot cycle. Repairing Vista does not work. Cannot even boot into safe mode to change it back! I am now using my original HD in 32-bit mode, but having no luck with my 64 bit HD. From 32-bit boot I can access everything on my 64 bit HD, but cannot figure out how to edit its boot back to 1 processor.
September 11th, 2008
thanks for the tweak! it made my vista home premium boot in less than a minute!
i just wanna share another tweak, in the boot tab of the “msconfig”, click advanced options, and set the maximum memory that is installed in your system. click ok and reboot.
these two tweaks made my vista boot in less than a minute.
January 13th, 2009
Works for me, thanks Vista Premium
Heinz
February 5th, 2009
Really, amazing. I believe, after setting the pc ram to max, it really make faster boot up, thanks to Meran.
March 1st, 2009
There are only options for 1 or 2 processors at the drop down menu for the number of processors at the boot menu. This tweak unfortunately will not help my quad core to be utilized. Regards. Bosko
April 16th, 2009
Using Intel i7 920 with 4 cores, applying this msconfig trick hypertreading doesn’t work anymore (ie 8 cores in Taskmanager are disabled).
with 4 cores on, startup is mutch faster. Think that on the long run using all 4 cores in hyperthreading leads to better performance. More experiances with this?
July 14th, 2009
For >2 processors, try unhiding any hidden folders & files (Windows Explorer|Tools|Folder Options|View).
Now look in C:\ for the file boot.ini.
Open it in Notepad or other text editor, and see if manually changing the value for /numproc = will work.
December 8th, 2009
I have done this and my Laptop loads much much faster! I’m a little worried that this might be potentially harmful in the future, does anyone know if my computer will be harmed by this in the future?
Please reply,
Sami
January 27th, 2010
My system crashed constantly after a few weeks and my motherboard no longer works after implementing this tweak. I would not recommend doing this. There must be a reason Microsoft don’t specify the number of sytem cores greater than one when booting.