Free BootVis utility from Microsoft

Cheers Warp2Search for pointing out this tool, which is a free download from Microsoft's Drivers and Hardware Development team. This team has taken bold steps in making fast startup PCs a reality with Microsoft Windows XP.

This page provides tools (BootVis.exe) and guidelines for system manufacturers (and the casual XP user) who want to improve boot and resume times for new PCs. The typical design goals for the consumer version of Windows XP on a typical consumer PC are:

Boot to a useable state in a total of 30 seconds, Resume from Hibernate (S4) in a total of 20 seconds, Resume from Standby (S3) in a total of 5 seconds.
Boot and resume times are measured from the time the power switch is pressed to being able to start a program from a desktop shortcut.

Instructions:    BootVis.exe works in 2 steps (no installation is required. Simply run the .exe file):

First BootVis must analyze your system: Terminate all programs running on your computer, since the program must restart your PC.
Select File -> New -> Next Boot + Driver Trace. Then a new window, which you acknowledge unchanged with OK, opens. A window opens in which a countdown for the restart runs.
In the second step BootVis optimizes the boot process of your computer. In addition the system must be rebooted again. Therefore terminate all running applications. This process might take up several minutes.

In the Warp2Search tests (by Degger), his original boot time was 30 seconds, and after running BootVis.exe, his optimized boot time came down to 23 seconds!

View Microsoft source: Fast Boot/Fast Resume for the Windows Platform