Soluto: use the wisdom of the crowd to optimize your PC and make it run and boot faster

Is your system too overloaded with apps? Does it take way too much time to boot up? Would you like a simple, uncomplicated software that can help you optimize the programs that load on Windows startup and decrease the time it takes your system to boot up?

If so, you should check out Soluto. This program takes the concept of optimizing your system’s startup program to a new level. From a purely technical perspective, Soluto doesn’t do anything that is not been seen before: it either disables programs that start with Windows or otherwise delays them so that they load up at some point after the boot process is finished (things that freeware apps such as SysInternals Autoruns, Starter, and Startup Delayer have had on offer for quite some time). The difference is that Soluto succeeds in making this optimization process accessible to everyone regardless of their technical proficiency.

Soluto’s genius is that it is people-focused rather than PC-focused. It measures the time that it takes your PC to boot up, separates the apps that can be removed or delayed from those that absolutely have to be there, shows you exactly how much time each program is adding to total startup time, and gives detailed information on what the program is, what happens if it is removed from startup, as well as a recommended course of action. Last but not least, Soluto has a “social” aspect where it tries to employ the collective wisdom of its user base to both describe unknown apps as well as suggest solutions and contribute questions.

Worth mentioning is the fanciful term the developers of this app refer to this project: decoding the PC genome. How cool is that?

Freewaregenius 5-Star Pick

The video below, created by the the developers of Soluto, offers an easy way to become more familiar with what this program is all about. So, therefore, I will offer the TEN things I like best about this program:

(1) The fact that it measures your overall boot time, and keeps track of exactly how much time your were able to save via the optimization process.

(2) That it displays a visual timeline, with each different program or process displayed according to the time that it consumes, giving you an idea at a glance regarding which programs take up the most time. (See screenshot at the top of this post for an example).

(3) That it offers a “recommendation” and backs it up with arguments (see screenshot to the right)

(4) That it displays programs in three categories: “no brainer” programs that are recommended for removal, “potentially removable” that likely can be removed but have to be given some consideration, and “required” programs which have to remain in startup and cannot be removed.

(5) That it offers an implication of removal; i.e. it answers the question: “what will happen if I remove this from loading on startup anyway”

(6) That it offers a delay function, whereby apps are loaded after the booting process, at a time when the computer is idle.

(7) That “paused” programs can easily be re-instated if necessary.

(8) That it employs the wisdom of the crowd (or is that the cloud?) in identifying unknown entries. The jury is still out on that one, though, to see if the Soluto user base will contribute to the project and whether the concept will work out as intended (personally, I am optimistic, as this is a great program).

(9) That it is accessible to relatively non-technically savvy users, such that I can recommend it to those users inadvertently pile up startup programs without knowing it and who really need a program like this one most

(10) That it works: I was able to go down from 3:41 mins to 2:53, cutting down my boot time by 25%. Of course I could have done the same thing using other startup manager programs such as those mentioned above, but I didn’t. The point is, Soluto makes it so easy and straightforward, and in many cases provides value added insight.

Finally, here’s a video demonstration of this program in action:

[Thanks go to reader Ricardo B for tipping me off about this one].

Version Tested: 1.0.721.0 beta (I think this is the version number).

Compatibility: Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 (32 bit and 64 bit version).

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 871K) .

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Samer Kurdi

Has been reviewing software since 2006 when he started Freewaregenius.com

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June 5, 2010

Samer Kurdi

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http://www.simplesmente.com Ricardo

Excellent tip. I just ran Soluto on my system. I was able to get boot time down from 2:20 to 2:00 (only a 10% reduction… still good). They have a killer concept in there. I showed my support by helping their Wiki with 5/6 definitions which I had to research online. (I’d have to research to remove them from boot, anyway).

I did find an annoying issue, though: One of the start-up items I knew not to be required (Vaio Update, just one of several parts of Sony’s bloatware) — yet it showed as required and thus Soluto would not let me pause it. I saw no way of overriding the “required” status.

Also, the Wiki system apparently won’t go so far as letting users suggest a “required” item to be “not required”. The flag on “enable pause” was already on, so that would not be effective. This made me wonder… are all required items really required?

Anyway, the concept is brilliant, and the implementation in general looks very good. The above is just a small issue, which they may work around by the time it leaves Beta status.
Samer

@ Ricardo,
Thanks for recommending this program. I agree the concept is brilliant and the implementation is excellent.

I have just edited the review a little bit to make Solutio a Freewaregenius Pick!
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Mike

Thanks for reporting on this program. I had never heard of it before, but I was intrigued by your write-up so I gave Saluto a try on one of my PCs. On the first pass alone, I was able to trim my boot time from 4:39 to 3:28 just by pausing about 5-6 items and delaying another 6-7. Next time I look at this, I will probably move a few more from the delay to pause category, which may not affect boot time, but will reduce the number of less-than-vital items running at all times. So far, this appears to be a very useful and well-implemented app that I will be recommending to my friends who also tinker with these things.
oneinthecrowd

Everyone and everything HAS to be ‘social’ (and especially controlled by the crowd, haha), yes, even the bootprocess of a pc. But I didn’t get it until reading the comments : I really wasn’t aware of people having computers booting voor many many minutes.
Now, I can’t agree more : this must become a Genius Pick (rumours got around, the next upgrade will control a robotic arm, taking the arm of computerusers, so they don’t have to choose themselves anymore which buttons to push).
http://avp-blogs.com AVP

Good app there Samer.

Works well if previously System Health Report under Perfomance Information and Tools (in Vista) is used to collect benchmarks as a cross verification to zone in on a particular sub system component.
ThongLD

After Google Wave, Soluto is the most amazing implementation of a great concept AFAIK.
http://www.tazoa.ie/oc/ Francois

WOW! My laptop had become so slow to boot up, I had to try Soluto. I was a little sceptical that it would make that much difference but even half a minute would have made my day.

My initial boot up time went from TEN (10) MINUTES to FIFTY SEVEN SECONDS.

I am still in shock. Admittedly I was ruthless with the pausing and delayin and I have found no issue with my system so far. I love Soluto.

I also love freewaregenius.com which I read all the time so thought I would let you know that too.
Clayton C

My laptop would uses Windows 7 and would not download the program. I have been having some problems with my Windows Installer and got an “error 1603″. I e-mailed Soluto asking if they knew anything about this and got an answer saying they are working on a new installer that should solve the issue, in case anyone else has encountered this problem as well.

My desktop however with Vista now boots nearly 60% faster using Soluto! Amazing program!
Scott T

You should be aware that if you’re behind a proxy it’s likely that both the installer and the program analysis will fail. It isn’t clear to me that the company even understands the problem:

http://community.soluto.com/soluto/topics/internet_connection_through_a_proxy
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http://www.rchsd.org Tom Williams

Yesterday I saw this article, was intrigued so much due to my systems horribly slow boot. I downloaded, installed and setup my system. I took a 6 minute boot down to 2 minutes and am simply beside myself. It was so fast that I thought I had to have broken something. Not so.

The downside is that I no longer have the time to make oatmeal and get my coffee ready before I have to log in and complete my boot process but wait, that is a good thing right?

This is a great concept and I love how they implemented the wiki and included the community in such a fashion that seems on a path to succeed where so may other applications fail.

If more applications integrated the community experience in this way, the software world would evolve naturally instead of having its will imposed upon us.

Great Review!!!
Ricardo Bremme

Hehe, no, thank YOU SAMER, the one on top is another Ricardo hehe…
Franl

One problem is that this software will analyze the bootup process each and every time the machine is booted up. The option on the application’s icon simply disables the graphical interaction the analysis process is still being done on every bootup which means that the boootup time is increased by the amount of time that Soluto takes . The developer feels that few people boot their machines, All of the people i know turn their computers off at night when they are finished with them.
http://www.pallab.net Pallab

Soluto doesn’t intend on being just a startup optimiser. Actually, PC Genome is an ambitious project (its a cool name, but it actually stands for quite a lot), whose aim is to make troubleshooting easier. From my own article on Soluto.

Soluto has ambitious plans. As I mentioned earlier, it dubs itself as anti-frustration software rather than as a Windows boot optimiser. As a part of the, yet to be launched, PC Genome project it collects data on processes which can adversely affect system performance. Whenever you experience a slowdown, you can click on the “My PC Just Frustrated Me” button. Soluto will try to figure out the potential culprits by analysing the system resource usage of background processes and submit the information to the database. Soluto hopes to be able to make useful recommendations in the future by analysing unusual application activity and coupling that with information about hardware configuration.
Donna

Excellent article. Thanks for sharing this one.
I wonder though, is it better than disk space fan ( http://bit.ly/ca0Jyf ) for windows ? I’ve just started using dsf the other day, but now I am wondering if I should switch to this app.
Both are free luckily, so I may just give this a whirl to decide between the two, but any info from those that have already tried this would be helpful too.
ichiban1962

previously used “startup delayer” to tweak the boot process, installed soluto 3 days ago and what a excellent peice of software this well thought out user interface and very easy to make changes to several programs that always cause problems for me.
already had a fast boo time of 1min 7secs and was able to get it down to 56secs for my laptop running Win7
this can only get better
Heth

You dont have to have it start up every time – you can right click on the icon and disable the function.
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Abronsius

Very great software with an amazing interface! Wow! BTW, good results too
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Great blog! I really love how it’s easy on my eyes as well as the information are well written. I am wondering how I could be notified whenever a new post has been made. I have subscribed to your rss feed which ought to do the trick! Have a nice day!
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Great to see a program, which makes pc startup optimization an easy task for an average computer user. I’m suprised that it even measures the overall boot time, giving the user exact details and facts on how much time it is possible to save via the optimization process. This way this program not only makes the startup process faster, but it also teaches the user why the startup process can take so long. Though most pc optimization tools have the startup optimization feature, they mostly do this automatically, without giving user any feedback. Soluto makes the whole process transparent, while keeping it plain simple. Thanks.
jod

As for me I have to thank God I could finally close and uninstall Soluto, I never felt so frustated testing a “magic” piece of software of this kind. sorry.