Speed up the start-up time of Windows

Launch a web browser and head to www.soluto.com. When the website appears, click the green Download button. If the File Download Security Warning dialogue box appears, click Save and then choose a location for the downloaded file. Firefox users should select Save File to save the download to Firefox’s default download folder. Once the download is complete, double-click the solutoinstaller.exe file to start the installation.

If a User Account Control message appears, click Yes to allow the installation to continue and then click ‘I Agree – Install’. Additional installation files may need to be downloaded, so ensure the PC is connected to the internet during the installation process. Once Soluto has been installed, there will be a slight delay while the software launches. When this ‘Installation done’ message is displayed, click the Reboot Now button to restart Windows.

It is likely Windows will take slightly longer than normal to launch the first time it is started with Soluto installed. This is because the program is analysing the Windows start-up process. While this analysis proceeds, Soluto appears as a curled page in the lower left-hand corner of the Desktop. To ensure accurate results, do not use the PC until Soluto has finished what it is doing.

Ensure your computer is connected to the internet and click either the ‘Learn more’ link in the page curl or the Soluto icon in the Notification Area. Soluto now compares the start-up programs detected on your PC with those in its database. The summary at the top of the program window indicates how long Windows takes to start (‘boot’) and how many programs launch at start-up.

Below this, the green bar represents programs that can be safely removed from Windows start-up without risk of causing any harm to the PC or preventing anything from working. Hover the mouse cursor over the green bar and it will expand to display all of the programs that fall into the ‘No-brainer’ category. Many programs can be easily identified by the shown file names.

Hover the mouse pointer over an individual entry for a couple of seconds and the description box will expand to reveal additional options. To help reduce start-up times, the program’s launch can be prevented or delayed. Clicking Pause will prevent the program from running until you choose to launch it manually, while selecting Delay allows the program to launch only after Windows has fully loaded and the PC isn’t doing much else. A small pie chart gives an indication of the actions other Soluto users took.

To find out even more about a particular service or program, click the Advanced link at the bottom of the information panel. To the right are details of just how long the program takes to load: this may help you decide what action to take.

The main Soluto screen tracks the number of start-up programs that have been adjusted. Having worked through the programs in the green (No-brainer) category, advanced users may wish to look at some of the entries in the orange (Potentially removable) section. Programs here can be paused or delayed in the same way as before, but it is important to read the descriptions carefully before changing any settings.

When finished, close Soluto by clicking the cross in the upper right-hand corner of the program window and restart the PC. The start-up time should be quicker. Soluto will pop up in the lower left-hand corner of the screen to give an accurate time measurement. To launch paused or delayed programs, right-click the Soluto icon in the Notification Area and select Launch My Paused Apps or Launch My Delayed Apps.

As well as reducing the time it takes Windows to start up, Soluto also keeps a track of how the computer has been used over time. This includes changes made by Soluto itself. Open the main program window by clicking the Notification Area icon, then click the History icon at the bottom of the screen. The graph shows how Windows’ boot time has changed over time.