Did you notice XP boot getting faster?

I am still using my original XP install from 2006.

Over the years I've been weeding out the useless auto-starting programs that accumulate and make PCs slower as time progresses.

But I did allow an extra few, such as Google Desktop, Google updater, Java and Adobe update checkers etc.

So, all included, I think I DO NOT have fewer critters crawling now than before, nor did I fiddle with the boot process in other ways, nor did I install more RAM or a faster HD. Not even a new BIOS since 2008!

In spite of that I noticed an unexpectedly and substantially faster boot process.

I am not referring to the early appearance of the fake boot that shows a totally inoperative desktop while XP is still yawning and stretching.

Instead I mean that this zombie stage where the destop is unresponsive used to last 60-90 seconds, but dropped to 10 seconds or even less over the last several months.

Is this the effect of recent OS updates? Or did some of the commonly used updaters get any lighter?

Any news about it? I can't find any!

Not that I want to complain or anything...

 

Thanks, TonyT! This is a good explanation.

NETWORKING
Within the same time frame XP got faster, all the network hardware I connect to at my main 3 location got upgraded. Whenever the speed of DHCP response is visible (when I manually switch to auto from fixed IP) new leases are obtained within maybe 4 seconds instead of 15.

This however does not explain the massive boot time saved. The latest boot took 8 seconds from entering the password to a fully fuctioning desktop, rivaling wakeup from suspend-to-RAM. (And it wasn't... I was running a badly broken FreeBSD live CD right before this boot!). Waking up from suspend-to-disk takes much longer still.

It's as if a bunch of stuff that needs to load in RAM had been slipstreamed. Cept, this has been reported to have happened in the Linux world, not on XP.

DEFRAGMENTATION
Could it be because I unwittingly selected "optimization" when I ran some nonstandard defrag tools? I normally use the standard defrag program from the management console. Normal defragmentation has a modest impact on I/O throughput on modern disks.

However, in the last year or so I did occasionally use 3rd party tools that at least offered that option.

Could it be that concentrating system files toward the beginning of the drive may accound for another 10-15 seconds saved?

My reasoning is that over time and over many updates, and after standard non-discriminating defrags, many system files might have "floated" away from the beginning of the drive where they originally resided.

Anyway, I wish speeed it stays this way.