how do i eliminate slow startup

Clarifications

can you tell us the specs of the machine, OS, ram, processor>? could give us a better idea on how to answer your question

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Is your system a stand alone system (home computer) or is it networked (computers linked to a mainframe server)?
Windows XP?
Windows 98 SE?
Linux?

It could be a hardware issue, it could also be caused by having a lot of things running in startup. It seems like almost every app has a phone home feature that starts when you log in.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb545027.aspx

And see how much junk is unnecessarily starting at system startup. Look especially at your system tray - lots of icons = lots of apps running all the time. Things like iTunes, scanner and printer software, instant messengers, etc., all slow down boot (and the system in general). Updaters for adobe, java, etc., don't need to run all the time if you check for updates yourself.

If you don't want to use Autoruns, find all the apps that start automatically and use their own settings to tell them not to do this.

And defragment your hard drive.

Bootvis.exe is a performance tracing and visualization tool that Microsoft designed to help PC system designers and software developers identify performance issues for boot/resume timing while developing new PC products or supporting software.

More info at:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/sysperf/fastboot/default.mspx

Download at:
http://majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=664

You can use this tool to find which process or service is taking time at startup. Otherwise you can see if your harddrive is writing slow or is a trouble.

Once you found the culprit then use Autoruns.exe to remove that service or process.

Cheers !

1. defrag. Fragmentation, particularly of key system files and the files in your startupm list can slow down the windows startup.

2. check whether the HDD is running in UDMA mode or PIO mode. PIO mode is very slow (UDMA is default).