Basically the problem I have is that the computer boots up terribly slow. I used a program to check the time it took to boot up my computer and it registered 194 seconds. I read on the other Windows 7 forum that this guy has his computer booting up at 17 seconds and he has 3G of memory. I have 4g.
Just a little piece of advice....while 194 seconds is indeed a bit on the slow side....just remember that the person who posts that his computer boots in 17 seconds might not be exactly telling the truth. Or they may just inadvertently be misrepresenting the facts...for example, exactly when are they timing from??
For example, I have a new build that is about 4 months old. It's an Intel Q9550 Quad Core 2.83Ghz overclocked the 3.2Ghz. 8GB of G.Skill DDR2 800 RAM with 4-4-4-12 timings, I'm running an Intel X25-M Gen2 80GB SSD drive as my boot drive, I've got a 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black hosting my page file and providing storage space. It's in an Antec P182 case, with a 620W Corsair HX modular power supply, and a 22X DVD Burner. Total cost of the box, including the OEM license for Vista with free upgrade to Windows 7 came out to about $1500. It's running 64-bit Windows 7.
From the time I hit the power button until my monitor comes to life : 12 seconds
From the time I hit the power button until my POST is complete: 20 seconds
From the time I hit the power button until my login window appears: 35 seconds
So, I would say that my box actually "boots" Windows in about 15 seconds...of course this doesn't take into account the time to actually get to my desktop...but after I type the password it happens almost instantly with my SSD drive. I never consider the time to POST as this time happens regardless of which OS (Windows, Linux, etc)
However, an application that you run which times your boot time, might take into account the 1). Time to POST 2). Time to Boot Windows 3). Time until logged in and the application itself can stop it's timer. Thus, I say my box boots in 15 seconds....but your application might say 45 seconds. That's a big difference when measuring the same thing.
For another reference, I built a machine at work recently with an Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 CPU at 3.0Ghz, 4GB of Corsair RAM, and a 500GB Western Digital Caviar Blue drive. With Windows 7 64-bit , this box clocks in at about 60 seconds from a power button push until I'm at the login screen for Windows.
Note: In both cases, these are pretty clean builds. I've probably only installed about a dozen small apps (like firefox, notpad++, ImgBurn, 7Zip, Paint.net). The only larger apps installed include VMware, VirtualBox, and OpenOffice. So, if I had more stuff installed, my boot times would naturally be longer. I am running Microsoft Security Essentials and have made no other tweaks or modifications to improve my boot times.