BOOTING TIPS

Quick DOS Boot
If you want to get to a DOS prompt when starting your computer, you probably press F8 when you see the Starting Windows 95 message, wait for the menu to appear, and choose the Command prompt only option. Here's a shortcut: Press Alt+F5 instead (at the Starting Windows 95 message), and you'll go directly to a command prompt.
Day Planner on Booting the Machine
There are plenty of day-planning software available in the market to help you remember all your contacts. Unfortunately, most of them either makes the computer system slow or are very complicated to use. Here’s an easier (and cheaper) way out. Make a note of reminders in a .txt file in the notepad. Put all the required things like contact numbers, timings, contact persons etc in the .txt file. Just copy the txt file in a c:\windows\start menu\programs folder. That's all. Whenever you boot the machine, the txt file will open on its own. Whenever you boot the machine, the txt file will open automatically. So, you will have the full details of the meetings in a file that opens in front of you. Edit the file & save the changes to keep it updated. You can even use a MS-Word or Excel file for this purpose!!
For Faster Booting
It can get pretty frustrating waiting for the machine to boot especially when you are in a hurry to access something. Here’s a pretty slick way to ensure faster booting. Click on start, choose run and type msconfig. a screen will pop up. Click the startup tab on this screen. Now you will see a list of programs that launch automatically when your system starts. You can now choose the programs you actually want your system to launch when it first starts up. It is highly recommended that you disable programs that you know you don't use everyday such as Realplayer, Microsoft Office FindFast (especially,Findfast because it really doesn't do anything). The aim of this exercise is to save plenty of memory and help your system boot that much faster by keeping the system tray as empty as possible. Remember that all rarely or lesser used applications can be manually started. With effort you can get a boot up time of less than 45 seconds.