After you know some Tweaks and Tricks in Hacking Windows XP Registry, there is another one TIP to make the boot Windows XP faster than ever.

Firstly, this tips is only can be applied to the computer which only have one HDD on their primary IDE channel, which nothing else on device 0 or 1, and CD-ROM or DVD-ROM on the secondary IDE channel.  Every time you boot your computer with Windows XP, there is an updated file called NTOSBOOT-*.pf.  It appears in your prefetch directory (%SystemRoot%Prefetch) and there is no need to delete any other files as the new prefetch option in Windows XP really improves loading time of installed programs.

What we want is only make Windows XP to boot faster and not decrease its performance.  Here is the way to make it a result in an Extremely fast boot:

1. Open notepad.exe, type “del c:windowsprefetch tosboot-*.* /q” (without the quotes)
2. Save as “ntosboot.bat” in C:
3. Go to “Start menu” -> “Run…” and type “gpedit.msc“.
4. Double click “Windows Settings” under “Computer Configuration” and double click again on “Shutdown” in the right window.
5. In the new window, click “add” -> “Browse“, locate your “ntosboot.bat” file and click “Open“.
6. Click “OK” -> “Apply” and “OK” once again to exit.
7. Go to Start menu, select “Run…” and type “devmgmt.msc“.
8. Double click on “IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers”
9. Right click on “Primary IDE Channel” and select “Properties“.
10. Select the “Advanced Settings” tab then on the device 0 or 1 that doesn’t have ‘device type’ greyed out select ‘none’ instead of ‘autodetect’ & click “OK“.
11. Right click on “Secondary IDE channel“, select “Properties” and then Repeat step 9.
12. Reboot your computer.

WindowsXP should now boot REALLY faster.