You can begin working in two areas if you are looking to speed up laptop performance. The first place is where you can improve boot up speed, the other should help you speed up shutdown time.

Improve Boot Up Speed

You can do plenty of things in this area. You can change the settings in the computer's registry, remove some applications to free up hard disk space, disable some autostart tasks in the startup menu, or remove some of the background programs. The last two will most effectively help you with speeding up your laptop's performance though.

The problem though is that there is no one place where you can go to stop tasks from running automatically. You can go to the Startup folder and remove some of its contents, in the Windows Registry to tweak the startup settings or in other nooks in your laptop's system. With a little perseverance, you will be able to boost your laptop's speed one data at a time.

Start by clearing out the unnecessary contents in your Startup menu. Do this via the Windows Configuration Utility which you can access by typing in 'MSCONFIG' in the Run dialogue box for XP users or in the Start Search box for Vista users. Disable some of the programs from running during boot up to prevent them from competing with the main programs for the limited computer resources. At this juncture, you are only deleting the shortcuts for the programs, but not necessarily the programs themselves. If you truly want to take the programs out of your laptop's system, you can go to their different locations in the control panel or in the Add/Remove Program tool to fully delete them.

If you are opting to delay this process, you can instead try to bypass the automatic loading of the autostart files. Do this by pressing the Shift key as the laptop starts up. This will prevent the various startup programs from running on this particular booting up.

Next, focus on your notebook's Scheduled Tasks. Go to C:WindowsTasks and change the settings at this point.

Improve Shutdown Speed

It isn’t just the startup speed which you can improve, you can work on the shutdown time as well. Unlike speeding up startup speed, this area requires you to do a bit of work.

Through the Run dialogue box (XP users) or Start Search (Vista users), access the Windows Registry Editor using the 'regedit' command. This will show up the Registry Editor window which is divided into two panes. On the left pane, you will see five different folders. On your right, are the keys to the folders.

To enhance shutdown time, there are two folders which you should work with. Start by expanding the HKEY_CURRENT_USER >> Control Panel >> Desktop and look for the ‘WaitToKillAppTimeout‘ on your right. Double click this key to get to the pop–up window. Change the box's value to 1000 to 5000 milliseconds, depending on your preference.

Next, work with the second folder – the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE – and navigate SYSTEM, CurrentControlSet, then Control. Look for the 'WaitToKillServiceTimeout' key that is located. Change the value in the box that will appear to 5000 – 1000 milliseconds, depending on your speed preference.

Restart your computer and observe how this new setup works. These steps are designed to help speed up laptop performance.