Is your Windows 2000 system taking a long time to boot up? Is the "Preparing network connections..." pop-up screen overstaying its welcome? Well, if you are using a dial-up or DSL connection that does not use DHCP (automatic IP settings), this tip will help you speed things along by preventing Windows 2000 from using DHCP to resolve an IP address over a network.

Here's how you go about it :-

Method 1

1. Go to the Control Panel and select Administrative Tools.

2. In the Administrative Tools folder, select Component Services.

3. The following screen will appear.

4. Look for DHCP Client and double-click it.

5. In the DHCP Client Properties screen that pops up, you will notice that the Startup type is Automatic, which means it is loaded during Windows 2000 startup.

6. To disable DHCP, you can either change the startup type to Manual or Disabled.
    
   - Manual means that Windows 2000 won't automatically start the DHCP service on startup but it can be started by a Windows 2000 user or a service depending on DHCP.
    
   - Disabled prevents DHCP from being started by any Windows 2000 user, Windows 2000 itself and any other service depending on DHCP.
    
7. Therefore, if you are sure that your connection does not require DHCP, set it to Disabled. But if you are not sure, then you might want to try setting it to Manual instead.