Disabling Unneeded Hardware Devices

One of the most time-consuming portions of the boot is loading all the hardware drivers for your specific system setup. Every driver for each installed hardware device must be loaded and then initialized by the operating system while the system is starting up. Keep in mind that your computer has a lot of devices that you do not always use. When Windows has to load all the extra hardware on your computer, its performance is slowed down.

Although Windows 7 is more intelligent than previous versions on how it loads drivers and devices, loading those devices and initializing them still takes time. In previous versions of Windows, the system would load one hardware device driver and then load another device driver in a series. The problem with loading the hardware this way was that it could slow down the boot dramatically if one hardware device was taking a long time to initialize.

Windows 7 is similar to Windows Vista in the way it loads device drivers and initializes the devices. Instead of loading the hardware device drivers in a series, it now loads some of them in parallel. This allows the boot to be much faster. Although the hardware devices are loaded in parallel instead of in a series, the addition of more devices that the system has to load drivers for has the potential to, and most likely still will, slow down the boot.

Using Device Manager to Disable Hardware

Getting rid of extra hardware with Device Manager is an easy way to speed up your boot. Follow these steps to disable your extra hardware devices:

1. Click the Start menu, type devmgmt.msc, and press Enter.
2. After the Device Manager loads, you can browse through your devices that are connected and currently running or disabled by browsing through the device type sections. To disable a device, right-click the device name, and then select Disable.
3. To re-enable a device, right-click the device name and select Enable. This removes the check mark from the menu and re-enables the device.

Tip To determine quickly the status of a device, check out the icon next to its name. All devices that are disabled have a down arrow over the icon. All devices that have a question mark or an explanation point on them are not set up correctly or are having problems. All devices with none of these additions to the icon are running - and doing so without any problems.

Which Hardware Devices Should I Disable?

Each user uses (or doesn't use) devices differently depending on the system setup. Nonetheless, some classes of devices are more commonly disabled than others. Knowing which ones will help you make your decision as to which devices you should disable. The following classes of devices are frequently disabled:

• Network adapters: Especially on notebook computers, there is often more than one network device. Disabling the network devices that you do not use will definitely save you some booting time.
• FireWire: If you have 1394 connections, otherwise known as FireWire, you might consider disabling them. Unless you are using your FireWire port to connect your digital video recorder to your computer, or have other external FireWire device, you have no need to have this device enabled.
• Biometrics: Some of the latest computer hardware includes biometric sensor equipment such as a fingerprint scanner. If you do not use these security features, you can save time by disabling theses devices, too.
• Modems: Do you have a broadband connection? If so, consider disabling your modem. If you rarely use it, why not disable it? If you ever need to use it again, just re-enable it.
• TPM security chips: Does your computer have a Trusted Platform Module (TPM)? These chips are typically used as a secure place to store an encryption key that would be used for something such as hard drive encryption. If you are not using any of these advanced security features of Windows 7, disable these devices, too.
• Multimedia devices: Your computer has lots of multimedia devices. Take a look at the "Sound, video, and game controllers" section in Device Manager. You will find a lot of device drivers that are loaded during your boot. Some are used by all users, but you will find a few that you do not use. For example, I do not use my game port or my MIDI device, so I disabled both of them.
• PCMCIA cards: If you are a laptop user, consider disabling your PCMCIA card controller located under "PCMCIA adapters." The PCMCIA (Personal Computer Memory Card International Association) slot is a special expansion slot that is rarely used today on laptops except for wireless and wired network cards and card reader attachments for compact flash and other solid-state memory cards. Most laptops now have builtin network adapters, and some even have built-in wireless adapters. If you do not use your PCMCIA adapter, it is yet another device you can safely disable.

Caution Do not disable any hardware devices located under the Disk Drives, Computer, Display Adapters, IDE Disk Controllers, and the System sections (except for the system speaker). These hardware devices are critical to the operation of your system.