XP boot time on Mac Mini

**Dave323Ci** · 07-08-2008, 10:05 AM

I have an Intel Mac Mini 1.86Ghz w/XP running via bootcamp. It taks about 90 seconds to fully boot into my front end app, and about 55 seconds to resume from hibernation. I have disabled all unneeded services in XP. I will probably do the minlogon route to see if that speeds anything up.

What are your XP boot times?

Would a clean XP install with no OSX speed it up?

**Machinehead** · 07-08-2008, 10:35 AM

I've gotten it down to 50 seconds for a cold boot and about 30 for hibernation. Minlogon doesn't really help much, it may save you a few seconds. I'm recommend getting TuneXP (Link:http://www.download.com/TuneXP/3000-...-10290929.html) and running the ultra-fast boot option. It essentially defrags and moves the critical boot files around to optimize boot times. Download and run bootvis and have it optimize your boot up.

Also disable any hardware that you aren't using, like the wired ethernet, bluetooth, wifi, etc.

Probably the biggest slowdown on the Mini is the 10+ seconds it takes to get out of the bios and start the OS boot process.

**Dave323Ci** · 07-08-2008, 11:09 AM

Originally Posted by Machinehead

Download and run bootvis and have it optimize your boot up.

Thanks -- I have disabled wired ethernet, but using bluetooth so I can't do that.

From what I read on microsoft site XP sp2 already uses bootvis or bootvis logic -- have you actually used it or TuneXP?

**Machinehead** · 07-08-2008, 11:37 AM

I've used both, TuneXP's Ultra-fast boot option had a noticeable effect on boot time for me.

Another thing to look into is nlite to create a stripped down version of windows. There are some versions of windows floating around already pre-stripped like TinyXP, although technically it's illegal.

Edit: Also turning off the paging file will save you another few seconds of boot time as well.

**Dave323Ci** · 07-08-2008, 12:31 PM

Yeah I have looked into TinyXP... was kind of waiting to complete my hardware installs before I went further. Think that's now actually. Just ran the boot optimizations and a couple others from TuneXP. No impact at all on cold boot time or resume. Oh well.

btw my times included loading my front end app.... so time to usefulness ithe car. I can live with it, but will keep trying.

**Machinehead** · 07-08-2008, 01:56 PM

What are you running as front end? I'm using RoadRunner, it only adds about 5 seconds.

**Dave323Ci** · 07-08-2008, 01:59 PM

yep roadrunner w/DFx skin.... it doesn't take long... but resume hangs until I touch the screen for some reason... maybe the logging from bootvis will help figure out what's happening. Hibernate works fine, but takes way too long to resume.

Are you using dual boot w/bootcamp or did you install just XP? I assume an XP only install still uses the "virtual bios"

**Machinehead** · 07-08-2008, 02:05 PM

Cold boot has a lot less issues than resuming from hibernate, at least from my experience.

I'm just using XP, OSX is a waste of space for me. And yes it still uses the virtual bios, otherwise known as EFI.

**NeonDev** · 07-08-2008, 02:05 PM

Are you using dual boot w/bootcamp or did you install just XP? I assume an XP only install still uses the "virtual bios"

a mini has no BIOS chip so yes XP only still has to use the BIOS emulation supplied by the EFI

EDIT: Machinehead you beat me!

**Dave323Ci** · 07-08-2008, 02:11 PM

Ok so for the moment I'm going to be lazy and keep asking (rather than searching). I originally installed OSX/bootcamp and XP both because I was going to experiment with which I liked better.... but now...I'm going to stick with windows since what I want it to do is working great (except for boot time). Can I remove OSX, and re-size windows partition without doing a total re-install? I tried using... oh I forget.. some windows partition tool and it wouldn't let me re-size the OSX partition.

Related question.... is the XP only install a different boot process than bootcamp?