Startup time from 75 seconds to 165 seconds. What is wrong?

You don't need to reinstate any of the msconfig>Startup items unless you absolutely need the program running when you start up, using RAM and CPU even if you're not using it and spying on you. The exceptions would be a laptop's factory Battery or HD utility which also has a driver installed - google unknown startup items to find what they are - as these may monitor battery life and/or park the HD reader.

Periodically check back to see if any programs have written themselves into Startup tab and turn them off in their Program preferences.

Next on the msconfig>Services tab Hide All MS Services, then see what is running without permission. Uncheck these if you didn't start them yourself. If they write themselves back into the list after restarts, turn them off in their Preferences or uninstall them.

Any longer than 30-60 second startup is problematic. Use this tool if the above steps don't help: Trace Windows 7 boot-shutdown-hibernate-standby-resume issues - MSFN Forums

Other tips for cleaning up a factory OEM bloatware install: Clean up factory bloatware

75 Seconds is crazy! But 3 minutes is nuts for windows 7. Here is a application that is an extreamly good solution to reslove your issue with boot times. If anything else at least give this a try you can always uninstall it.
http://www.soluto.com/Download/
This application breaks down your boot and shows you detailed information on how long each service and application takes to launch and has delay and pause options. Your boot should not take more than 60 seconds running anything over a dual core on windows 7.
I have a crap athlon II x4 620 and my boot is 48 seconds.

I personally would not tolerate a boot over 30 seconds, because I know Win7 can be made to do better.

It isn't always a startup program but often a driver failing to load or even a slow or fragmented HD.

On a Dell Core 2 Duo with two minute start time and highly suspect Apple/AOL/meebo startups, we ran the MSFN trace adminstered by our own Cluberti - possibly the leading expert in the world on this.

Carl immediately spotted in the trace results 1) a 5400-rpm HD with 2) heavy system file fragmentation. We offline defragged System files which decreased boot time to 1 minute, where it stands until OP wants to replace Dell's ridiculously spec'd HD.

I would never allow an application to 'clean' my registry but there are alot of free applications that can defragment your registry that should help.

Auslogics Registry Defragger is the only one I would trust based on about ten year's experience with it.

Interesting thread, I ran Auslogics Registery defrag, defragged my boot HD and finally ran Soluto, after having Soluto Pause the recommended aps Im at 1 min 23 second boot time, Not sure what else I could try? Im guessing this is a little slow still (boot drive is a 1TB Samsung F3 Spinpoint 7200pm SATA)

Could it be because I have several partitions on 4 Internal HDDs? I wouldnt think that would effect boot time tho.

What are those 49 applications that Soluto can't remove (yet ).

Suugests at least some of them are not needed - just that Soluto is beta and can't get rid of them for you.

Try looking in msconfig startup tab - post a screenshot and we can advise if you can stop anything else from there.

SIW2 said:

What are those 49 applications that Soluto can't remove (yet ).

Suugests at least some of them are not needed - just that Soluto is beta and can't get rid of them for you.

Try looking in msconfig startup tab - post a screenshot and we can advise if you can stop anything else from there.

When looking at the msconfig start tab I uninstalled a few apps that I didnt use (IGN download manager / DS3 Tool etc.) which helped a little.

Is it normal for the boot times to be inconsistent? (this is without changing anything). One time Soluto will report 55 seconds, reboot and its at 1:15 seconds etc. it always seems to vary.

I reboot the PC twice just now without changing anything and Soluto reported 1:12 and 1:10 the 2nd time.

Heres my current msconfig:

I don't have any of those.

Try unticking them all ( don't worry - if you do find you want one - you can just re tick it later ).

You don't seem to have your a/v app. listed there.

My boot time varies 27 to 45 secs. usually 35-40 secs.

Your machine is a lot better than mine.