If you’ve got a multi-core computer (2, 4, 8, whatever) and you’re running Vista, here’s a great way to decrease your boot time by instructing Vista to actually use more than one core during the boot process.
- Click on the orb, type msconfig, and press enter
- Click Continue a UAC window appears. (If you’re not logged in as an admin you’ll probably need to give your admin password too.)
- Select the Boot tab and then click the Advanced options… button.
- Check the Number of processors: option and use the drop-down list to select the number you wish to use.
- Click OK.
- Back on the Boot tab check the Make all boot settings permanent option. (If you don’t do this step, you’ll be forced to undo it once you reboot. So, ok, if you’re not sur about this process, skip this step, confirm it works, then redo all this including this step.)
- If you did step six answer the "are you sure" question by clicking the Yes button.
- Reboot your computer.
I saw about a 30% boot time reduction by changing from one to two cores for boot.
