Boot Vista faster using multiple processor cores
By Jonathan Schlaffer
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.
Related:
Entry was posted
on Tuesday, June 24th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
under 
Print This Post
Read more entries by Jonathan Schlaffer.
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.