Long boot times explained

Long boot times, while often overlooked, can significantly impact productivity. Over time, these delays add up, leading to noticeable losses in work hours and potentially diminishing employee satisfaction. Moreover, slow startups can signal deeper system issues, such as the need for updates or looming hardware problems.

If the problem is systemic, long boot times can lead to hundreds, if not thousands, of productive hours lost per year depending on the size of the company.

Let’s use a company with 250 computers as an example. The average user restarts the device about 50 times per year. If the environment is misconfigured in a way where each device’s boot time is increased by a minute, for a single user that means 50 minutes of waiting time per year. For the whole organization however, it translates to 12 500 minutes, or 208,33 hours of lost productivity per year.

Disable Fast Startup

Ironically, one of the most problematic settings that often leads to slow boot times in Windows is the Fast Startup feature. Enabled by default, it aims to shorten the startup process by pre-loading some boot information before the PC is turned off. (It's important to note that this does not affect the restart process, only shutdowns.)

Despite its beneficial intent, Fast Startup can lead to issues for many users, making it a prime suspect if you're experiencing slow boot times.

Central Management

If you have any means of central management, such as unified endpoint management solution or Group Policy management, you can centrally turn off the Fast Startup with ease.

Path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Power
Name: HiberbootEnabled
Type: DWORD
Value: 0

For most endpoint management solutions, the best way to apply this setting is to use PowerShell, which is then deployed centrally to all devices.

$Path = "HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Power"
$Name = "HiberbootEnabled"
$value = "0"

if (!(Test-Path $Path)) {
    New-Item -Path $Path -Force | Out-Null
    New-ItemProperty -Path $Path -Name $Name -Value $value -PropertyType DWORD -Force | Out-Null
} else {
    Set-ItemProperty -Path $Path -Name $Name -Value $value -Force | Out-Null
}

If you are using Group Policy Management, you may set the registry value by leveraging the in-built Registry function found in Computer Configuration > Preferences > Windows Settings > Registry

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IMPORTANT NOTE: Setting the Group Policy Require use of fast startup to disabled does NOT disable the setting itself, but only allows the setting to be managed locally.

“If you disable or do not configure this policy setting, the local setting is used.”

If you do not have central management, you will need to disable the fast startup on each device individually.

To do this, navigate to Settings, then go to System > Power & Sleep. On the right-hand side, select Additional power settings to access the Power Options menu in the Control Panel.

Next, choose Choose what the power buttons do from the left sidebar. You'll need administrator rights to modify these settings, so click the link that says Change settings that are currently unavailable at the top of the page.

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Finally, deselect Turn on fast startup (recommended) and click Save Changes to disable the feature.

Avoid software installations and scripts via Group Policies

The most common reasons for long boot times in hybrid o on-premises environments are the presence of software installations and startup scripts configured in Group Policy Objects. As Group Policy Management was first released with Active Directory back in 1999, the idea of booting up a device anywhere but the company domain network was unheard of at the time.

This is why software installations, among other legacy features, assume that your computer is in contact with the domain during startup. What this means in practice, is that if the device is booted somewhere else, say a home office, startup scripts will wait for the domain network for a period before moving on to the login screen.

It’s strongly recommended to move away from Group Policy managed software installations and startup scripts, as today’s modern endpoint management suites and even group policies have other ways to deploy settings and applications to endpoint devices.

Optimize Group Policy processing

Extensive or complex Group Policy Objects (GPOs) applied to the device can increase login time as policies are processed. In addition to reviewing the need for the group policies in your environment, disable the user configuration in policies that only include user configurations.

To do so, follow the below steps:

Open Group Policy Management snap-in.
In the left pane, expand the Forest container, expand the Domains container, browse to the domain of the target GPO, and expand the Group Policy Objects container.
Right-click on the target GPO and select GPO Status.
Select Computer Configuration Settings Disabled.

Check the operating system age

Operating systems, over time, can exhibit slowed performance due to a variety of factors related to their installation age. This degradation in performance can manifest in various ways, including longer boot times, slower application launch times, and delayed login processes.

Accumulation of Unused Files and Applications: As a system is used, it accumulates files and applications that may no longer be needed or used. These can take up valuable disk space and resources. Temporary files, old system restore points, and unused applications can contribute to system bloat, making the operating system slower to navigate and process user requests.

On operating systems like Windows, the registry, which is a database of system settings and configurations, can become bloated with outdated or unnecessary entries. This can happen due to frequent installation and uninstallation of applications. A bloated or corrupted registry can slow down the system, affecting startup times and overall performance.

Over time, many applications configure themselves to start automatically with the operating system. This can lead to an increase in the number of processes running in the background right from startup, consuming system resources and slowing down login times and overall system responsiveness.

To remediate the issue, consider re-installing the operating system. For more information, refer to section Reinstall Windows in article End-of-Life Operating System.

Investigate failing hardware

Hardware failing can attribute to slowed login times. A common reason is the disk drive failing.

One of the first signs of a failing drive is drastically reduced read/write speeds. Since the login process often involves reading from and writing to the disk (e.g., loading user profiles, initializing applications, applying settings), any delay in these operations can lead to longer login times.

Over time, disk drives can develop bad sectors—areas of the disk that are damaged and can no longer be read or written to properly. If critical system files or components of the user's profile are in these sectors, the system may attempt to read these files multiple times or skip them altogether, both of which can delay the boot process.

Modern drives have built-in error correction mechanisms. When a drive begins to fail, these mechanisms work overtime to try and salvage data from bad sectors or to correct errors. This additional processing can significantly slow down disk operations, affecting login times.

To investigate, run a software designed to check for problems in the drive. Most manufacturers have their own proprietary software to check the health of the drive, such as Samsung Magician.

Another viable stand-alone option is CrystalDiskInfo.

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