Vista Boot question

Hi,
I was hoping someone could clarify something that seems to work

MSCONFIG/ BOOT tab /ADVANCED OPTIONS button...
In this page there are two check boxes, one for Number of processors and another for Maximum memory, which seem to be unticked by default.
Under this there are three checkboxes:

PCI Lock
Detect HAL
Debug

Which also are unticked (it seeems) by default

I saw some advice which indicated by ticking Number of processors and selecting the Number of processors in machine (quadcore = 4) and ticking the Maximum memory and selecting the amount onboard (maximum amount). On rebooting I noticed Detect HAL was ticked (which I didn't do).

What this seems to do is speed start up slightly, stabilise system immensely and prevents, Driver Stopped Responding errors, it also smoothed out the games I run; being FSX and Crysis, to a large degree.

What I'm asking is, is different thoughts, etc on what this actually does and if any other contributor, who might have tried this, if they saw the same improvements.

Here's a brief explanation:
http://www.emachines.com/faq/vista/7515418su73.html

Afaik, Vista only uses 1 core for boot and kicks the others in automatically. So I guess the select processor thing is to get all cores of a quad going right away.

That would explain the faster starts, but I suppose not the rest of the effects you describe.

Interesting!