Soluto
 

This is an application which i have been following for a while. It has some excellent promise and the team behind it seem to be pretty clued up. It`s not really aimed at "power users" as most know what`s what when the pc is booting, that said it can assist in diagnosing why a computer is taking so long to start, and what can be delayed/removed from boot.

It gives a detailed display of what`s happening during boot and also gives opinions based on what others have done.
Have a look at the video under "sneek peak" to see what`s it`s all about. Think it has a place in this software crowded world?

This is BETA software so use at your own risk especially if on a production/your only pc. It may have been fine for me, that doesn`t mean it will be for you!

http://www.soluto.com/

Re: Soluto
 

I'm using it. :tu:

I find it provides a more convenient method to manage your auto startups.

No more MSconfig or fiddling around in the registry.

Working for me on XP and Vista machines. :)

Re: Soluto
 

Hi, just a warning.

Have just installed this and now I get a service error on startup, my boot time has doubled, and Windows boots into classic mode instead of Aero now (even without disabling any services/programs using Soluto). I've uninstalled the program and still have these problems. So, before you try this, remember that it's still in beta. I'm going to chase up my problem on their support site, and see if I can find a solution.

Re: Soluto
 

Sorry to hear this Pbryanw, have you tried going through windows own troubleshooter to fix the problem, sometimes it works :erm:
Control Panel->Action Centre->Troubleshooting->Appearance and Personalization->Aero

Alternatively Start->type in Aero and click "Find and fix problems with transparency and visual effects"

Also check the service "Desktop Window Session Manager" is running Auto at start up and maybe re-run your Windows Experience Index.

System Restore?

Good Luck, let us know how it goes...

Re: Soluto
 

Sorry missed your post (I've just logged on), but many thanks for your support & the troubleshooting steps.

Unfortunately I have System Restore disabled, so I went ahead with a Repair Installation, and everything's back to normal - so no harm done :tu: :)

There's someone with a similar problem on the Soluto Support forums, so I'm going to follow that thread and see if I can find out why my installation went wrong.

I'll probably try the software again when it comes out of beta, as I was impressed by what it does, how simple it is to use and its interface. Unfortunately, there just seemed to be an incompatibility between it and my machine.

Re: Soluto
 

I have my Vista laptop using classic mode without aero anyway so I wouldn't have noticed any Soluto mischief.

Re: Soluto
 

I've used this, and it's pretty good. no problems so far.

Re: Soluto
 

Using it too..not seen any issues apart from one, i have windows 7
My coffee seems to get cold quicker, but I'm not blaming soluto...:D

Re: Soluto
 

Yep, probably my issue just affects a small number of users - there's only one other user who's reported this problem on the Soluto forums. It's the first time something like this has happened to me, and I like trying out beta software. So, I'll just chalk it up to experience.

Re: Soluto
 

Just an update. I made contact with Soluto support, and after a remote session (in which the problem was replicated), they worked out that there was a problem with my .NET installation that was causing the errors I was having with Soluto. After reinstalling .NET, I've since been able to use Soluto with no problems, and it is indeed an excellent piece of software.

I was also highly impressed with their support - they spent around five hours troubleshooting, and working out what was wrong with my PC :tu:

Re: Soluto
 

My system boot time from the beep to desktop is 36 seconds.

Re: Soluto
 

I'm gonna give it a try. I say "going to" as my PC is currently rendering something (has been since last night) so I don't want to reboot it.

However, I question how much of a difference it will make. OK, it might shave a minute or two off your boot time. Does that make much difference? After all, most people will reboot once a day at most..

Re: Soluto
 

I did try this when first posted, but forgot to report my findings using Windows XP Pro on my 3½ year old laptop, can't remember exact timing but from what I remember...

Installed it and disabled or delayed a few things, I think it reported the boot time was/is something like 1min 40secs.
It said it saved something like 15 seconds of boot time, but Soluto itself was taking 9 or 10 seconds to load, so really only saving a few seconds.

One thing I did notice that every time the boot time reported by Soluto was different.
Could boot, do nothing, re-boot and get a different time by 5-10 seconds.

Had it on for a week or so then took it off.
Might be useful to help with real slow boot problems, but from my test on a normal working machine not much use.

Re: Soluto
 

I still prefer Bootvis myself. Free and far more powerful, but not for the average joe. Just wish it was updated beyond XP. Tells you the exact time the system spends doing everything at startup, down to individual driver initialization delays; though it leaves it up to the user to do anything about it.

Re: Soluto
 

how much time did ya used to wait doing reading that lmao

---------- Post added at 12:59 ---------- Previous post was at 12:57 ----------

If it shaves a minute off then you aint configured your system properly in the first place I am sure with your experience thats not the case.

I see this program as a total waste of time and it itself on my system took 6 seconds to load and it can't even stop itself from starting up. When you uninstall it it says its reverting your actions so I assume it needs to run to work all the time.

The only user it may help is the noob who has a lot installed that starts up and the no brainer section is applied

Re: Soluto
 

That'll be 95% of computer users then. Then again, if you've heard of Soluto, you're probably more likely to fall in the other 5%.

Re: Soluto
 

Eh? Sentence. Sense. Not making.

Re: Soluto
 

It claimed it could save a minute on my startup. However, once I took out the stuff I actually used, that went down to 20 seconds and I think it was exaggerating it's timings a little.

Re: Soluto
 

I tried it, but it saved me 3 secs or something, my bootime from start to completed desktop' is something like 4 mins. But I run a lot of stuff like widgets, sidebar etc, I also don't tend to reboot more often than every 6-7 days.

So I removed it.

Re: Soluto
 

OK, I let it run. It's taken me longer to download, install and configure Soluto than it saves. Combine that with the fact that I personally am not bothered if my PC does take a minute or more to start up (I restart it at most once a day). So, while Soluto may well do it's job well, I won't be bothering with it.

Re: Soluto
 

Mine takes about 15 second's from the point where the window's 7 square appear's to being in window's but it takes, about 20 second's from that point before I can play a game.

From pressing the power button it takes roughly 1 minute to be able to play a game, simply because of my SSD and the overclock on my cpu.

If I had a motherboard that didn't do all the check's that mine does then I could in a game inside of 40 second's.

SSD's work better and faster with a overclocked cpu but the normal disk drive's I think might be wrong but I don't think they take advantage of a overclocked cpu.

My pc is mainly used for gaming but if I wanted to convert a video the only thing that stops me from being able to do it in less than 2 minutes is my 2tb hdd's.

These type of program's are good for people who have alot of program's that start on boot that are not needed but, if you have enough confidence you can just use msconfig instead and it is just as good I suspect, although I have not tried soluto so couldn't say for sure.

When the type of storage that has already been mentioned come's around then these program's will be useless.

The other thing is look at Apple with there laptop's you lift the lid and they are there and ready instantly but, do it with a windows laptop and you have to wait so the issue is also down to window's not being optimised fully to use the hardware fully to speed thing's up.

Some of the thing's I said may be wrong and I am sure I will be corrected but people should really look at a SSD if they really need the time it, takes for there pc to boot shortend as they are very quick when used as a boot drive.

Re: Soluto
 

No they're not. My macbook pro running from a standard HDD takes 60 seconds to boot to the desktop from power off and then it takes another 30 secs to fire up Firefox. A bit quicker than Windows perhaps, but not much.

Re: Soluto
 

That's nothing to do with being optimised (although OSX is fairly well optimised for the limited amount of hardware it supports).

What it is more to do with is that, by default, Mac laptops suspend to RAM when you close the lid (they do hibernate when the battery gets too low to maintain suspended mode). Windows defaults to hibernating to HDD when the lid is closed on a laptop.

Configure both kinds of laptop to do the same thing (be it suspend to RAM or hibernate), and you'll find they resume at roughly the same speed.

From a cold start, however, I personally find OSX 10.6 starts faster than Windows 7.

Re: Soluto
 

As I said I might be wrong about something but atleast I know about that hibernate thing on mac's.

I wasn't to sure about them as I don't use them so don't really know much if anything about them other than I saw one, have the lid opened and it was there ready to use instantly but that must have been hibernating.

Thank's for clearing it up for me though "Learn something new everday".

Re: Soluto
 

And if you want to know how to configure OSX to hibernate to disk (like Windows), open up a terminal and type "sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 3" for most mac laptops, or 'sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 5" for those using the "secure virtual memory" option.

Re: Soluto
 

From the other thread
60Gb OCZ Vertex 2E

Anybody running 7,Vista and I believe XP if you want to save a few seconds you can turn off gui boot by searching msconfig clicking the boot tab and checking no gui boot on 7 and Vista dont have a clue how to do it on xp. Saved me 2 seconds app it can save people as much as 5.

Re: Soluto
 

I too tried it, but it saved me 3 secs or something, my bootime from start to completed desktop' is 4 mins. Most of the stuff were in Area I cant STOP (ie Required). I did stop / delay a few but only 3sec here & there.

Not what I wanted lol.

Re: Soluto
 

I'd like to be able to turn my PC on, count to 10 and its onto desktop and ready to go.

That'd be a nice benchmark aim for MS/pc hardware to achieve.