Make Windows 7 Boot Faster with Free Soluto

Are you pulling your hair and clenching your fists, because your Windows system is taking a long time to boot? Over time, as you install new programs, Windows configures newer programs to start at the boot time. For example, your anti-virus software loads at every Windows startup. Loading so many programs at the boot time makes Windows itself boot slower. The free utility Soluto has the solution to this problem. Soluto is a cloud based application that can calculate the time being taken by all the programs starting at the Windows boot. Then it checks its online database, to give you suggestions as to which programs can be removed to make Windows start faster.

Soluto is programmed in the .NET 4 Framework. So if you have not already installed the .NET 4 Framework in your Windows 7, you can download and install .NET 4 from http://www.microsoft.com/. You can download Soluto from its web page http://www.soluto.com/. The download size of the setup program is around 5 MB, but it downloads a further 13 MB during the setup.

Cut Down Boot Times with Soluto

After the setup is finished, you are asked to reboot your computer. Rebooting is necessary so that the Soluto service can calculate the boot times (time consumed during Windows boot) of all the programs and services starting up at the Windows boot. You are shown options to reboot later or reboot now. It is recommended that you choose to Reboot Now.

Cut Down Boot Times with Soluto

After you have rebooted your Windows computer, Soluto would take some time calculating and analyzing all the applications starting up at Windows boot. Then it would consult its cloud based online database, called Soluto Gnome, for querying about these applications – which of them can be removed to cut down the boot time, which of them cannot be removed and which of them are potentially removable. It will show you a window showing you a graphical presentation in three sections – No-brainer, Potentially Removable and Cannot be removed as shown. If the Soluto window does not open up by itself, you can open it by double-clicking on Soluto’s notification area (system tray) icon.

Cut Down Boot Times with Soluto

The green colored No-brainer section has the applications which you can pause to run at startup with your eyes closed and it will not affect your system a bit. You can hover your mouse over this section, and you are shown all those programs. You can hover your mouse over a program to see the details and also the consensus by other users of Soluto. You can choose to Pause or Delay this application as shown.

Cut Down Boot Times with Soluto

If you choose to Pause an application which means that you will have to manually start this program whenever you want to use it. If you choose to Delay a program, it will continue to start at Windows boot but with some time delay – making Windows load a little faster.

The orange colored Potentially Removable basically contains programs which Soluto is not sure about (the online Soluto Gnome database has no entry about that program). It also contains programs that only advanced users may want to pause from running at startup. For example, Soluto listed my Sound Card driver program in this section. In my personal opinion, you should not touch the programs listed under this section.

The third section labeled Cannot be removed includes the services and programs which are essential for your Windows system to work optimally. It contains anti-virus, firewall software and other Windows related services. You can look at the details of these programs but there is nothing you can do about them as they are not removable.

When you set an application to Pause or Delay it is added to the Removed Applications list. Soluto window shows the amount of time saved by removing any applications. The removed programs are shown at the bottom of the window. You can see the details of the removed applications by hovering the mouse cursor over these applications.

Cut Down Boot Times with Soluto

If you hover over any of these removed applications, you can see the details about this. If want to re-enable this program to start with Windows, then you can click on the In Boot button for that program as shown. If you want to re-enable all the removed programs, then you can click on the Undo All button as shown in the following picture.

Cut Down Boot Times with Soluto

On my Windows 7 system, Soluto could cut down only 0.6 seconds from the boot time of 2 minutes and 26 seconds. But many users claim that it has made their system faster by as much as 30 seconds. If you system is taking a long time to start, you should give Soluto a try – it can make your Windows load a little faster by reducing the boot time. Soluto is still in the beta development stage and so we can expect more features and improvements in the future.