Which Mictrosoft Corp. Service is killing my boot time?

[WillyMF1]

When I first installed 7, I booted in under 20 second. Now it takes almost 50, all of it at the spinning circle welcome screen.

Using msconfig, and doing a diagnostic startup, my system boots in 17 seconds again. Disabling all startup items and non microsoft system services doesn't reduce the boot time back to the diagnostic time. That only leaves the microsoft corporation services right?

Are there any microsoft services added in a patch that are known to double boot times? Any ideas on which of the many services I should try to disable?

TIA

 

[not so gray matter]

Trying going through the services to figure out which is the problem:

Start > Control Panel > System & Maintenance > Administrative Tools > System Configuration
Continue (Provide Admin Credentials)
General > Selective Startup
Under Selective Startup, Uncheck Load Startup Items
Services > Check the Hide all Microsoft Services box > Disable All
Apply > OK > Restart

After finishing the restart, enable half of the services and try again. If it returns, try enabling the services one by one to figure out which is the problem

 

[Scotteq]

My first suspect if/when this happens is a device driver, especially USB ones. Disconnect everything except what's absolutely necessary and see does that affect startup time. If so, you may then add the devices back over time. If/when startup time jumps again, you have a likely suspect.

 

[WillyMF1]

Are the microsoft services what load the drivers or are the drivers something that are separately disabled when choosing diagnostic mode in msconfig?

 

[Scotteq]

Device drivers are separate and won't show up in msconfig. Windows also doesn't load/activate unnecessary devices when in diagnostic mode. This is another reason I suspect a bad/hung driver. Just unplug devices so the OS won't load the drivers for them, and start in normal mode. If that returns your startup times to normal, then it's definitely not an issue with the OS and all you need to do is figure out which device is the source.

 

[WillyMF1]

OK, great. Thanks for helping me understand.

 

[neo101]

1, discovering USB device - pull em all out then reinsert one at a time - reboot/test
2. network or wireless connection, switch each off in device manager - reboot to test
3, look for conflicts in 'system information'

 

[01101001]

Out of curiosity, have you changed your desktop wallpaper to solid colour? This will cause a 30 sec boot delay (its a documented bug).

 

[Tepid]

Out of curiosity, have you changed your desktop wallpaper to solid colour? This will cause a 30 sec boot delay (its a documented bug).

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/977346

 

[not so gray matter]

Out of curiosity, have you changed your desktop wallpaper to solid colour? This will cause a 30 sec boot delay (its a documented bug).

The Welcome screen may be displayed for 30 seconds during the logon process after you set a solid color as the desktop background in Windows 7 or in Windows Server 2008 R2

Hmm, I don't like installing random hotfixes. I use a solid background and my boot is about 50 seconds. I wonder if I switch to a tiled 10x10 black square will it still have trouble...

 

[Tepid]

Out of curiosity, have you changed your desktop wallpaper to solid colour? This will cause a 30 sec boot delay (its a documented bug).

The Welcome screen may be displayed for 30 seconds during the logon process after you set a solid color as the desktop background in Windows 7 or in Windows Server 2008 R2

Hmm, I don't like installing random hotfixes. I use a solid background and my boot is about 50 seconds. I wonder if I switch to a tiled 10x10 black square will it still have trouble...

No, because it happens with solid colors only, selected from the backgrounds menu.. If you make a picture of a solid color and use that as the background, you solve the 30-Sec Delay problem.

This is the first (what I would actually call) "real bug" I have found with 7.

 

[WillyMF1]

Out of curiosity, have you changed your desktop wallpaper to solid colour? This will cause a 30 sec boot delay (its a documented bug).

You are the man!
I had ended up reformatting rather than figuring out the supposed driver issues only to have the problem come back a few hours after.
Now all is good. Thanks!

 

[RknRusty]

My computer boots in about 100 seconds. It takes that time to load my firewall and AV, Winamp agent, Realtemp(using the task scheduler), and my Logitech wireless mouse program. Without all that, I'm sure it would fire up in a very short time but I really couldn't care less. When it's up and running it performs perfectly with a WEI of 5.5 (not counting my cheesy GPU).

I'm just curious as to why anyone cares so much about boot time, other than just the fun of tinkering. I love to tinker too, but I just tweak the things that make it faster while I'm actually using it. If you disable windows services, the performance will suffer - but boy it boots fast. I only reboot every few days anyway. It sleeps when I sleep.

Am I missing something?


P.S. Thanks to 01101001 for the solid color - 30 sec delay tip. I would have never guessed that one.

 

[Tepid]

You know,, I used to think that way also... Till I got my Dell Inspiron 1764 with i5 CPU and 4G DDR3 Ram and boot and be logged in extremely quickly.

My Desktop (see specs) is slow at booting and other things by comparison.
I definitely notice a difference and wish I had the money for the i7 CPU, Ram and Mobo to upgrade.

But, with that said. The few seconds difference is nothing like the minutes it used to be back in the day. So quite honestly. The few seconds don't really mean a whole lot of squat in the grand scheme of it all.

 

[WillyMF1]

rknrusty:
I wouldn't care if my server took 5 minutes to boot, but this is my gaming machine and I don't load any of that stuff on there that you mentioned. It really is less than 20 seconds to full usability. It's also a nice to be able to quickly hop on the web then off again. Sure I could leave this one on all the time too, but that would be a waste of energy. I already have 3 other machines here that never turn off, but they aren't conveniently located or powerful enough for gaming.

 

[RknRusty]

rknrusty:
I wouldn't care if my server took 5 minutes to boot, but this is my gaming machine and I don't load any of that stuff on there that you mentioned. It really is less than 20 seconds to full usability. It's also a nice to be able to quickly hop on the web then off again. Sure I could leave this one on all the time too, but that would be a waste of energy. I already have 3 other machines here that never turn off, but they aren't conveniently located or powerful enough for gaming.

Okay, Willy, I should never have doubted there was a method to the madness.

 

[01101001]

Like anything computer related, boot time is either important to you or it ain't. There is no
right or wrong, it's all about priorities. For me, I luv to tinker (especially doing what "shouldn't be done" or "can't be done") and I did focus on boot time for a while. A 31 sec restart time is where I am now and that's good enough for me.

I don't necessarily agree that disabling some services will cause a performance hit or a faster boot time. I do believe however that some services should be disabled under certain circumstances. Again, its a personal choice.

As is restarting a computer. I have a shortcut to 'Restart' on my desktop and I'm not afraid to use it. Sure, a pc can be kept on all the time ... but a refreshing restart can't hurt, IMHO.

Sorry if Ive veered a bit OT. Glad I was able to help, Willy -- I'm sorry I didn't respond fast enough to avoid you doing a reformat.