From ZZZ’s to Speed – Finding out what’s taking Windows 7 so long to boot and what to do about it guide

IT Expert Voice - What’s Taking So Long? How to Fight Slow Startup Times in Windows 7

“If your Windows 7 systems need half an eternity to boot up, there’s clearly something odd going on. Dealing with slow boot problems is annoying and – let’s face it – is mostly guesswork. Guesswork that costs money and time. We have got you covered: Learn how to analyze the startup process, find the cause in no time, and get rid of bottlenecks once and for all!

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Certainly, boot times vary significantly from one computer to another. This is nothing new. But if Windows 7 clients need way longer – and we’re talking way over one or two minutes – then you’re looking at a resource hog. So what could be causing the problem?

• You just installed a new driver, which hasn’t been WHQL-certified and delays the boot up process. It could be a simple driver bug!
• You installed a piece of resource-intense software that initializes a process or a service during startup.
• You updated existing software or Windows 7 itself. Yes, it’s not unheard of that some updates cause a significant boot delay.

Maybe it’s a combination of all three causes. In any case, something is clearly taking up too much resources during startup time. To get to the bottom of the mystery, you need to follow a couple of step-by-step instructions to find and resolve the issue. Ready? Here’s how!

Find Out Exactly How Long Windows 7 Needs to Start Up

Let’s start off by finding out the exact time the Windows 7 client needs to start up. And guess what, no stopwatch is required! Windows 7’s very own Event Viewer does the trick. In the following four steps you learn to measure both the raw boot time and the real life boot time (and what both mean).

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That’s it! With all the given advice you should be able to handle each and every boot delay that crosses your way. Go back to the Event Viewer to check if and how much all these steps affected raw boot time and real life boot time — I bet there’s a huge difference! On my client’s PCs I was able to cut boot times in half (or even less). A nice side effect that you should also consider: Now that you’ve gotten problematic services and processes out of the way, overall Windows responsiveness and performance probably has gotten a lot of better as well.

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What I really liked about this guide was that it “teaches how to fish” (Give someone a fish, they eat for a day. Teach them to fish and they are never hungry again). It’s not the usual, here’s how to remove items from start-up guide, but instead in-depth instruction on how to see what’s really taking so long and then it provides guidance on handling that.

For those of us providing “personal tech support services” (i.e. to family and friends) or work working the IT Help Desk, this information and instruction will help you keep your users, and their Window 7 boxes, well fed…