What are the "sure" methods of reducing windows startup time?

[Virtualbody1234]

How much more RAM ?
Cause i have now 2 gb of RAM and din't see any difference, i can compare to my computer at weekend house which has around 500 gb, no difference with same XP.

500gb of ram?

He doesn't seem to know what he's talking about.

[limesqueezer]

500gb of ram?

He doesn't seem to know what he's talking about.

What now, is 500 gb not enough for XP ?

[Virtualbody1234]

He doesn't seem to know what he's talking about.

What now, is 500 gb not enough for XP ?

See?

[limesqueezer]

OK, damn you got me, i said gb instead of mb hahaha
Have fun as long as it lasts.

[Smith]

Start>Run>msconfig

Go to the startup tab and see how many things are checked. Report back.

[Virtualbody1234]

OK, damn you got me, i said gb instead of mb hahaha
Have fun as long as it lasts.

No that's not even it.

[CrumbCat]

Toooooo funny!

[clocker]

What are the "sure" methods of reducing windows startup time?...But what are the most effective of these tricks or hacks?

In my experience, the biggest single improvement in speeding up boot times (and, not coincidentally, XP in general) is to create a custom nLite install disk.
Not only can you strip out huge chunks of useless crap (do you really need keyboard support for Urdu?) but most importantly, you can slipstream drivers into the install.
I have actually created test nLite disks (identical setups, one with and one without drivers) to check this theory and it does make a significant difference.

All the other recommendations will help but creating the custom install disk will make the biggest improvement.

Besides that, it's fun in a geeky kind of way.