Extremely slow Windows startup

I am not sure if this is the area to post this problem or not but I am sure you will help me or tell me where to post the problem.

PROBLEM: I upgraded to Windows 10 from Windows 7. I could not get my Dell 968 AIO to work at all since Dell apparently is not supporting the driver(s) for this printer and approximately 90% of their other printer drivers to be compatible with Win 10. I reverted back to Windows 7 using Microsoft's program to do so. Now among other problems which the main problem was not connecting to the internet which I did get to work, the sign it to Windows 7 is now taking about 6 or 7 minutes to login. Previously it was taking less the 1 minute.

Any help to resolve this slow login would be greatly appreciated. Bye the way, I have ran all of the Microsoft Trouble Shooter programs that Microsoft recommends.

Bud Rose

You say you went back to Windows because you had problems with Windows 10.

You say you used Microsoft's' program to install Windows 7. Do you mean you used the Dell Recovery Partition, or did you use OEM Recovery software provided by System Builder (Dell)? You need to be more specific, rather than just saying Microsoft's' program.

What is the Manufacturer/ Model number of your Computer?

Your asking how to speed up Windows startup.

What Antivirus and Firewall program/s do you have installed?

To begin, perform a "Clean Boot" to see if the computer will load Windows faster.

How to "Clean Boot", follow the steps in this tutorial. Scroll down to you see windows 7.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/929135

John

Just looking around, it looks like other Dell 968 AIO users were able to get the printing device to with W10 by using Windows Vista drivers - but only after first uninstalling the old drivers first.

Because W7 is already 7 years old, it would be better to get to the faster and more secure Windows 10, even if that means retiring your old printer.

Hi Bud,
Did your desktop come with OS discs, if it did your best bet for a re-install is using them.
(then depending on whether or not they included SP1, pre-requisit KB updates will be required).
if it includes SP1 then just use the July 2016 roll-up update, see link, after reinstall.
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/3172605

Roy

torchwood said:

Hi Bud,
Did your desktop come with OS discs, if it did your best bet for a re-install is using them.
(then depending on whether or not they included SP1, pre-requisit KB updates will be required).
if it includes SP1 then just use the July 2016 roll-up update, see link, after reinstall.
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/3172605

Roy

I just did a clean install back to Windows 7 after losing Windows 10 to a frozen Windows startup screen. Didn't even have time to create a backup. LOL

It was a pain updating this old computer which didn't even come with SP1, it's an HP 6751c about 5 years old. When I finally got SP1 installed, the next download was the old Windows Update Agent which kept searching and searching and not finding. Finally, I had to install Windows Update Client on top of the other older updater version. Once that was done, it scanned and found 233 updates in just a few minutes. It kept working until the updates were current.

I did try to install the July 2016 roll-up, it wouldn't install. I ended up installing the Aug 2015 Windows Update Client, instead.

John

Thanks all for your replies. I have another alternative but one question remains which is:

If I use a win 7 full system image backup that was created immediately before downloading win 10 prior to the July 30 free cutoff to restore my system will I loose the capability of restoring back to win 10? Or will I have to download win 10 again? I understand I have a full year to restore back to win 10 since I made the cutoff time with ease. This option is viable to me providing DELL upgrades their printer drivers to support win 10 within the 1 year time frame.

Thank you all for your replies & helpful info. I have decided to live with the slow startup & just do a shut down occasionally leaving the computer in sleep mode overnight. I researched how to speed up startup & find it is to complicated for my limited knowledge. I will switch back to win 10 IF Dell decides to make their printer drivers compatible with win 10. I am too frugal to go out & buy a new printer/scanner. Just because I believe that is what Dell wants, sell more printers & ink cartridges.

If you ever switch back to Windows 10, try downloading the Windows 8.1 printer drivers for you device. Sometimes, they work.

John

After months of "fiddling" to get a clean install of Windows 7 x64 Home Premium on my custom tower - Gigabyte Z68XUD3H-B3 Intel i-7 2600k; Intel SATA; Marvel SATA; Etron USB 3.0 ... SUDDENLY MY 7 MINUTE LONG SLOW BOOT TO LOGIN IS SOLVED!

Actually, the Win7 install went fairly fast along with rollups to and beyond SP1; drivers, etc...

Today, after rebooting from some Microsoft Updates... the slow boot to login went from 7 minutes to 23 seconds!

I think it has to do with one of these Microsoft Updates:

KB3179930, KB2923545, KB3150513, KB3181988, KB3184143, KB3185278, 3182203

I do remember than one of them had something to do with removing the Windows 10 "cruft"

Here is why I think it has something to do with MS Updates. On first clean install from an old Win 7 DVD, the system booted fast. Then, after the SP1 updates were added (and including an iso install with SP1 already included), boot time when to 5-7 minutes. In fact, no matter how I changed added services running, or hardware (swapped out drives; graphics card, CDROM, etc), boot time was slow. IT WAS EVEN SLOW before anything was installed from the USB with the Win7 SP1 iso.

Let's see... I must have spent 24 hours of my time "fiddling" to solve this problem... at $90/hour that's billable time of $2180 to Microsoft!

Walt Rogers

Hi Walt,

Thank you for sharing your experience with me. I had a very similar problem with load time as you, 7-5 minutes. I also tried everything I could think off to eliminate the problem with no luck. I accepted the fact to live with the timing but not happy about it. Then all of a sudden other than a few Microsoft updates my system went from 7-5 to less than 2 minutes with no changes whatsoever by me. Boy was I happy. Then I had to restore my system for another problem. Luckily I had a restore point from the previous day. I restored my system & on the first reboot the timing went back to the 7-5. I was very disappointed but continued anyway. On the 2nd or 3rd reboot the Microsoft window load took less the 1.5 minutes & the boot itself took approximately 35 seconds. I certainly can live with that. I do remember reading somewhere while researching for answers for the original problem that sometimes it takes 2 or 3 reboots before the load times get straighten out. That was really on the money.

Take care, Bud Rose