Slow Windows 7 Bootup?

So you got your shiny new Windows 7 PC and were blown away by the speed along with the fact that it simply works no matter what hardware or software you throw at it. You’ve loaded up all your favourite apps and plug-ins and installed those USB peripherals you simply can’t do without, and suddenly your are back in Vista territory with a PC that takes forever to boot up.

I’ve been down this road and spent many happy hours with msconfig.exe disabling startup items in an effort to wring some extra speed out of a machine. For a more detailed approach to this problem, have a look at this post from the IT Expert Voice web site. It steps you through the process of establishing exactly how long it takes Windows to start up, and then identifying and eliminating the bottlenecks.