My computer is a 450MHz machine with Windows 98 installed and an especially active hard drive during boot-up. I replaced the 32MB of SD-RAM with 256MB, thinking that the additional memory alone would reduce or eliminate most of the hard drive activity at boot-up. But that appeared to be not the case; the machine seems to take just as long before the hard drive quiets down and I can actualy open up a window or program. Any suggestions about what else I might be able to tweak in order to noticeably reduce boot-up time? Thanks and regards, hoWard

kill start up items using msconfig start>run>msconfig>startup tab uncheck programs

Sometimes just editing msconfig will not solve the problem. You may need to remove the items from your registry or they may start back up when you reboot.

"the machine seems to take just as long before the hard drive quiets down and I can actualy open up a window or program." Are you referring to the time after all the desktop items are loaded or before? If it is after, try deleting the shelliconcache file. It will be rebuilt on the next bootup. (sometimes it takes a couple of reboots to rebuild it) Locate it using Window's Find. I suspect that the one you are using is corrupt. If you are not comfortable with deleting it then just move it to somewhere else until it is rebuilt and then delete it if you are happy. If you are not happy then you can move it back and it will prompt you to decide if you want to overwrite the newer one. If it is before desktop items are completely loaded then follow the other's suggestions. Bryan

Am I missing something here? During bootup the hard drive is always going to be constantly active. In fact, bumping up the memory from 32 to 128 can increase that activity since Windows will now load more of the interface into RAM instead of pushing a lot of it into the swap file.