
You can view the amount of time different items take to load by analyzing the Log.txt file found in the XP's main directory. Run msconfig.exe, select the Startup tab, and clear the checkboxes beside those programs you no longer want to start automatically on startup. I have checked BIOS settings and reset these as recommended.
IMPROVE STARTUP TIME XP PC
It takes 5 to 7 minutes for the PC to become operative, before I can open anything. Suddenly (starting some days back) the booting process has become extremely slow. If you know what area and what resolution you want you can limit that start up time significantly by reducing the amount of scenery / data that you load but most users would not be happy with the way it looks and likely not very useful. 1 The OS used in my PC is Windows XP Professional SP3, duly updated. With an Optane drive typically you can load ZL18 (28GB) tile scenery in about 3 minutes, with decent mechanical dive 6-7 minutes.

"Not responding" is a normal behavior of XP during load which is trying to prioritize the processing to save time and the only thing you can do is wait for it, it may take 5-6 minutes to load in some cases, or press Esc, Ctrl C, go in Task Manager and stop it. Can that be improved in the XP, not likely but they may be able to improve to some extent? Don’t turn off your antivirus program, but check if it’s running a scheduled scan when you switch on the computer. Run disk cleanup via Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk CleanUp. There are procedures that can be used to accelerate the process, processing wise, but it does not land itself well to small size files, you need large chunks / blocks to take advantage of that. Make sure you are free from malware as that can slow it down.
IMPROVE STARTUP TIME XP VERIFICATION
XP does a lot of file verification but that amount of time is not very significant compared to other bottle necks like your storage retrieval speed is in most systems.
IMPROVE STARTUP TIME XP SOFTWARE
to run older software using compatibility modes, significantly faster startup times. The processing is controlled by the developer and there are ways that it can be improved, and in the latest versions XP has done some of it by loading compressed data and having the processor do the work and decompressing on your first load, from a fresh boot, you will see that it takes longer to get started than consecutive loads, if you restart the same version without shutting down. Its been 12 months since we first evaluated Windows XP as a music.

The speed of the load can be controlled by the user, by using a high speed storage device like an Optane which is the fastest read that I know of at this time, or Solid state drive and a high throughput / fast processor and a fast bus system.

A Tile can be 500 MB or less or 30GB and XP loads typically around 4 tiles so that amount of time difference can be significant. The amount of data can be controlled by the user by using low resolution scenery, the least that I know of is the default XP scenery. Load time is dictated by the amount of data and the speed that the data ca be retrieved and to some extent the processing that takes place during the load.
