Windows 10 takes 1 minute to boot

For general info, what is the typical boot time for a modern desktop machine with average settings? I know "average" can mean anything, but for a start, what should it be for my machine (please see my specs but exclude the three external HDDs)?

dalchina said:

There are many threads here about slow boot in Windows 10, and at least one very long one. This was a problem reported more often last year. I would suggest you read through some of that and see if there's anything that helps.

E.g.
Solved Slow boot on Win10 compared to Win7 - Page 3 - Windows 10 Forums
Solved Very slow startup after Windows Anniversary update - Windows 10 Forums
Solved Windows 10 10586.3 and slow login problem - Windows 10 Forums
- there are plenty more.

Otherwise I can only suggest technical analysis using MS's tools as per my previous post.

Thank you for your reply. I never actually found a solution reading other threads and I can tell you, I read a lot of threads on different forums. This is not just related to Windows 10, booting took 45 seconds on every windows version that I ever had (7, 8.1) but this time it's way worse. I wanted to know what's the problem, if people with the same machine can run it in 20 seconds, why can't I? I also forgot to tell everyone that I also have installed a linux distro but that shouldn't be a problem since the Windows 10 upgrade replaced the bootloader and now it boots straight to Win10.

dalchina said:

Ok as you've read all the threads.. then I suggest you try:
a. randomly replacing the major drivers with the version that last worked, or the last version approved by your manufacturer.
b. Disabling Fast Startup if enabled.
c. Use the MS diagnostic tools

@Stevekir: With an SSD, typical time to the lock screen on cold start =12s or so.

I'm running a sfc scan right now. I played with drivers, fastboot is off. Next I will try MS Diagnostic Tools, if nothing works I will turn fastboot on, enjoy my 1 minute boot and 2 minute shutdowns untill I buy an SSD.

"@Stevekir: With an SSD, typical time to the lock screen on cold start =12s or so."

Mine takes 22 secs. to the desktop appearing. The first 15 secs shows a black screen until a set of 4 small blue windows appears, against the black screen. Then after a few secs (about 2 or 3) a plain coloured screen appears with a "Sign in" box. As I am the Administrator and there is no password (I am a sole user) that disappears immediately and automatically and the desktop appears. I can live with that (my life is not that hectic).


Perhaps my 15 secs to the set of 4 small blue windows is, in my case, the same as your "12 secs to the lock screen".

I ran the trace boot from bootmgr, here are some results I would like you to analyse (PLEASE ZOOM IN IF YOU CAN'T SEE WELL)

What is smss.exe and why is it taking so long? Why are the multiple instances of scvhost.exe?


Is my CPU sleeping for half a minute?




With fastboot on, shutdown takes 2 minutes, windows boots fast but I get stuck on a black screen and then at the Welcome screen for 30 seconds.

So no answers? *BUMP*

In short, you have one of two issues. Either Windows is stalling due to conflicting resources (multiple processes trying to access a file that has been locked by one process for example), a badly written "wait for x" instruction, or accesses to another, non-SSD drive. If your CPU is stalling then we know it's time spent reading and writing.

Check the latter by trying to boot with all other storage physically disconnected. If it boots up fast, use CCleaner or another app to search for more startup items (msconfig startup tab is not a complete list, there are ways to make things start on boot or login that will not show up there).

Oh and @Stevekir The 15 secs to 4blue squares is entirely your motherboard electrically testing your hardware. Windows and/or SSDs cannot improve that time, but going into BIOS/UEFI and disabling RAM Test and USB Enumeration would take that figure down to about 4 secs, plus 2 for every Drive connected, but the name of those settings changes with board. Look for "fast boot" in BIOS.