How to have a HDD compete with a SDD for startup times.

*SORRY I MEAN SSD NOT SDD*
I haven't tested this versus any solid state drives but this has decreased my boot time by about a 1/2 minute and its very easy to do.
First off go into your MSCONFIG.
Next go over to the ' Boot' tab.
Under ' Timeout' it should be set to ' 30' change it to ' 3' (Lowest possible value between 3 - 999)
To the left in ' Boot options' check ' No GUI boot' (This disables the Windows 7 load screen)
Under ' Advanced options' check ' Number of processors' to ' 2' (or you can leave default as some users report problems with TS but I get no problems with 2)
After that press ' OK', and you can check ' Make all boot settings permanent' but I would suggest first to boot up and see if you like the settings first before you make it permanent.

 

The timeout option should only affect how long Windows will sit waiting for input if you have multiple OS's or recovering from a dirty shutdown.

No GUI Boot I can imagine will shave a bit of time off, never seen it myself when I tried it in the past though.

Number of processors. By default it should use all physical cores, and this option is really set where you want to limit the number of cores used. I don't think you should include virtual CPUs in the number either, just physical. Also I've seen some reports that this can mess up speedstep

Glad something has improved your boot times, but I really don't think this will make a standard HD compete with an SSD - I've not seen a HD that can, though I've not tried a hybrid.

 

These are some of the very first things I do when first configuring windows.

I did read somewhere (possibly on these forums) that setting the number of cores actually decreases performance when actually booted into windows. As well as setting the amount of RAM you want to use during boot up. I always leave those default.

Another thing you can try is setting the startup, shutdown, switch user sounds to NONE. This will cancel the time spent to play the typical windows sounds.

I also changed my windows log on splash screen to a straight black background. Which is a lot smaller file than the alienware screen.

Now obviously all this stuff in small, But can help with speeds.

With that said my HDD still took about 90 secs to fully boot and load the very minimal programs I needed on Boot up.

Now with an SSD installed it takes prob between 15-18 secs.

 

17secs roughly on SSD, so spot on tecrp7.
MasivB - changing the default number of processors on startup has a hugely detrimental effect on throttlestop as it reduces the threads to 2. So i5/i7 users (who implement TS) I would strongly advice not doing that.

 

Yeah I noticed when I had it on 4. I was getting problems. Once I put on 2 it was fine. I guess you have to put it as how many PHYSICAL cores you have.