One way to speed up windows xp startup is to make the BIOS run faster. There are a set of startup procedures in the BIOS that take place before system gets to starting XP. Hence speeding up the initial steps will reduce total boot time. This can be easily done with the help of a built-in setup utility. You can enter the utility by pressing the Delete, F1, or F10 keys (depending on your system) during startup. Here are the choices to speedup windows xp startup:

Quick Power On Self Test (POST): When this option is checked, your system will run an abbreviated POST rather than the normal, lengthy one.Boot Up Floppy Seek: By disabling this option you can save a few extra seconds your system spends looking for your floppy drive which are quite pointless in present time.

Boot Delay: Turn this off to stop the booting delay normally present to give hard drive a chance to start spinning before bootup.