Power up to PW went from 20 seconds to 100 seconds

All of a sudden a few weeks ago, my time from power on to password screen went from 20 seconds to over 100 seconds. I have made no hardware changes. The only recent software changes were upgrading Acrobat Pro from 9 to 11 and Office Pro from 2013 to 2016. I can't say if the boot time changed exactly when either of those software products were upgraded.

This happened last August. I went through all the steps recommended by the kind folks here except updating my video driver. It just was not possible. After a month or two, the problem self corrected. I have to think it was both caused and cured by Windows updates.

I would appreciate anyone taking a look at my WPR file to see if there is anything that stands out, other than that video driver being out of date.

Thank you.

Open taskmanger and look at startup whats impacting on the start.

Thank you for replying.

There are four programs showing "high impact" in TaskMan/Start. 'But they are all small programs that are unchanged in recent months.

I was assuming that the startup programs start after logon or, at least, after I get to the logon screen. Is that incorrect? Also, I did try using MSCONFIG for a selective startup, not checking load startup items. Made no difference.

My delay is getting to the PW prompt. Once I enter my password, I'll see my desktop in a couple of seconds. Then I'll see a couple of those startup programs, plus a few more in my Programs/Startup folder, start up. Again, none of those have changed.

Startup delays are usually due to Windows Update finishing some updates before booting. Not sure though.

I was hoping that last night's Windows update might bring some relief. Instead, my startup to PW screen time is now 2 minutes and 20 seconds. That's 40 seconds worse than when I started this thread not so very long ago.

Use Autoruns to check/disable what is loading at startup. is Safe Mode faster to load?

I suggest you post a boot trace here which someone may review for you.

I've recently had the slow boot problem by having an external drive having an active partition which confuses the boot process and an incompatibility with an old DVD drive which had to retire.

Use CCleaner to disable any unwanted startup items. In worst case I would also use HijackThis. Don't forget to scan for spywares.

As suggested by Steve C:
Safe mode only saves 5 seconds from the 2:12 power up to PW prompt.
Diagnostic start is same.
Here is the Boot Trace file.

Thank you.

Thank you, Zine. I am totally surprised. My keyboard is the Microsoft Canadian French keyboard modified by Microsoft's Keyboard Layout Creator, last version 1.4. I have been using that modified keyboard layout since XP.

What is surprising is that the keyboard has not been a problem before. Last August when I also had a boot slowdown, it did not show up as unusually slow in the boot trace. Then it was an outdated video driver. I was not able to update that driver but eventually the machine went back to a normally very fast startup.

My problem is that I need this keyboard layout. I write in French a lot. French Canadian gives me the QWERTY layout plus French accents. The mods I made using MS Keyboard Creator add a couple of characters I use a lot. If I gave up the mods, it would probably cost me more time than the slow bootup does.

I should also explain that I have three keyboard choices installed. Along with French Canadian Modified (FCM), there are English and French-France (AZERTY). When my laptop boots, Windows starts with English. I switch to FCM by clicking in the Notification area as needed.