ReBoot Time

With Avast, Acronis (essential before I started messing around!) and MS office 2003, I have all these loading at startup.

With 6596 I didn't get any significant change on the initial boot, still around 62 seconds or so. But there was a huge change with all my software installed. My earlier post was 167 seconds, after loading Avast and MS Office 2007.
Under the same conditions, with 32 other programs fully installed, Internet and LAN active I get this.Still not up to the Vista rebbot but improving rapidly!

This is mine, as is without any changes

I don't think anyone should be too depressed with poor results. This test depends on quite a few criteria. Unless rules are drawn up, comparison is menaingless. It depends how well you have hacked your Msconfig "startup" tab or the DLL's being loaded. On mine, for example, I have sorted the former but, so far, done nothing with the latter, although there are a few there that I do not use.
There is also a question of different computers, different hard disk speeds and, of course, where on the hard disk you have installed 7. If it is the only OS installed, then it will be on the closest portion to the head (the outside), if a dual boot then it may be on the inside, when installed second, and therefore slower.
This is overcome, to the most extent, with modern HD's. In an earlier post, I complained about a huge difference in the HD speed index, from 6801 to 6956. My htoughts then turned to the above comment so I reformatted and installed 7 as the only OS on my (three year old) HD. The index improved back to normal.