StartUp Times

[vanaya]

When people state there computer startup times are 1m20s, When do they stop the watch?? I know that anti-virus and other software affects times, but just curios.

[Superego]

I usually fire up task manager as soon as I can and then watch the cpu usage graph and the process list (sorted by memory usage or cpu usage). Once the cpu usage has "settled down" and there aren't a "lot" of processes using memory or cpu, I call time.

I use quotes on the terms above because they are kind of subjective. On my machine I can tell when a certain process is starting up and when it is just idle; this will most certainly vary from your machine.

[Stargate199]

I stop the watch when all of the icons that I have in the system tray all appear. The network icons are usually the last to appear.

[mattbiernat]

i stop when the Start button responds normally. for me this means that windows is usable.

[Nick Y]

I look at the processor graph of NHC in the system tray; this gives an indication of when the start up processes/ checks/scans have finished when the graph drops down to lowest.

[vanaya]

I started Task Manager as soon as desktop appeared and stopped the clock when CPU Usage dropped below 10%.
I have 3 600e all the same (CPU, RAM and HDD Speed). I was trying to determine which one was faster with a particular anti-virus sorftware. Am I comparing this correctly?? How would one compare which AV uses less resources??

[rxblitzrx]

I usually start the clock at the Windows splash screen and stop the clock as soon as Firefox opens and AIM logs on. For me, this is considered useable.

[Terrahawk]

All this is a bit more difficult for those of us who use domain logons. Does anyone have any "standard" for timing startup they use for a machine with domain logon?

[davidspalding]

I start with the fingerprint swipe prompt, and stop when the last of the items in my /Start Menu/Programs/Startup folder are running. Since some (buggy) apps like BitDefender and Windows Update were sometimes tying up the CPU after this, doing update lookups, or ... gosh knows what ... I include that in a liberal "startup" timing. I want the PC available to work for ME, not just showing a pretty desktop while "utility" software slows it down to the point that opening Outlook is an exercise in zen patience.

If you are impeded by a domain login ... have you tried using the TweakUI automatic login function? Not sure it'll work on a domain login, but you could try.

[Terrahawk]

I might give the TweakUI auto login a try. Good idea!