Bootvis? Where for art thou Bootvis?
Spinner
Birmingham, UK
It appears Microsoft has recently removed all traces (if you excuse the pun) of their Bootvis optimization tool. This is what Microsoft say:
This is what the people over at Tweakhound say:
I have to agree with Tweakhound completely on this, as I've always been an avid user of the Bootvis tool, and it does without a doubt speed up your boot time when used correctly. I suspected something a little fishy was going on with Bootvis ever since Microsoft pulled, almost immediately after its release, v1.3 of the tool from its site. Nevertheless, I have a copy of both v1.1 and 1.3 of the tool, and of course, you can, and always have been able to, get them from Short-Media's downloads thread.
So... I answered my own question then.
Related news:
http://www.short-media.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1627&highlight=bootvis
"Please note that Bootvis.exe is not a tool that will improve boot/resume performance for end users. Contrary to some published reports, Bootvis.exe cannot reduce or alter a system's boot or resume performance. The boot optimization routines invoked by Bootvis.exe are built into Windows XP. These routines run automatically at pre-determined times as part of the normal operation of the operating system."
This is what the people over at Tweakhound say:
I'm not sure what kind of game they are playing but the "Bootvis.exe is not a tool that will improve boot/resume performance for end users." is a blatant untruth. From what I understand, Windows XP runs the routines that Bootvis does every 3 days (isn't it strange that all 4 machines showed improvements even though XP is supposed to be doing this by itself?). That may be all well and good but suppose I want to put my machine in a optimized state NOW (especially if I want a clean and optimized Ghost image)? For MS to say it will not improve boot times is ....ridiculous. They may not have created this tool for end users, but it does work. It makes me wonder if there isn't another reason for removing it. We already know that MS released a second version of Bootvis for P4 machines with Hyper Threading enabled (which required a hotfix). Is there a problem with it and if so, won't the routines that XP runs by itself also run into these problems? Just a little harmless speculation. Maybe I can start another MS conspiracy theory?! But I digress....
I've provided examples from my system, and 3 other systems on my home network. One is before using Bootvis, the other is after. Keep in mind these systems have all been tweaked and the 3 other systems have had Bootvis run on them at some time in the past. The procedure I used was Trace > Reboot > Optimize > Reboot > Trace. The changes may not be great but they are there (I've seen MUCH larger changes).
I have to agree with Tweakhound completely on this, as I've always been an avid user of the Bootvis tool, and it does without a doubt speed up your boot time when used correctly. I suspected something a little fishy was going on with Bootvis ever since Microsoft pulled, almost immediately after its release, v1.3 of the tool from its site. Nevertheless, I have a copy of both v1.1 and 1.3 of the tool, and of course, you can, and always have been able to, get them from Short-Media's downloads thread.
So... I answered my own question then.
Related news:
http://www.short-media.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1627&highlight=bootvis
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