Here are additional tips to speed up windows xp startup, by changing the value of registry entry on StartUpDelay parameter, it's expected that the startup delay at login will be faster, the following key registers are to be changed;
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Control \ ContentIndex]
search key; StartupDelay,
change to 4000
Then find the file "Boot.ini" in the HOMEDRIVE (usually the drive C:), then decrease the value bootime untill it looks like this example;
[boot loader]
timeout = 3
default = multi (0) disk (0) rdisk (0) partition (1) \ WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi (0) disk (0) rdisk (0) partition (1) \ WINDOWS = "Microsoft Windows XP Professional" / noexecute = optin / fastdetect
Furthermore, other tips can be read at arstechnica
