f your Windows 7 systems need half an eternity to boot up, there’s clearly something odd going on. Dealing with slow boot problems is annoying and – let’s face it – is mostly guesswork. Guesswork that costs money and time. We have got you covered: Learn how to analyze the startup process, find the cause in no time, and get rid of bottlenecks once and for all!

Windows 7 is a fast beast, especially when it comes to its startup process which was optimized dramatically compared to Windows Vista. No wonder, as Microsoft has a dedicated team focusing strictly on startup performance. And it shows: On one- to two-year-old hardware, Windows 7 usually takes only 20 to 40 seconds to boot up. Even the performance-wise challenged netbooks rarely need more than a minute to be ready for work!

Certainly, boot times vary significantly from one computer to another. This is nothing new. But if Windows 7 clients need way longer – and we’re talking way over one or two minutes – then you’re looking at a resource hog. So what could be causing the problem?

• You just installed a new driver, which hasn’t been WHQL-certified and delays the boot up process. It could be a simple driver bug!
• You installed a piece of resource-intense software that initializes a process or a service during startup.
• You updated existing software or Windows 7 itself. Yes, it’s not unheard of that some updates cause a significant boot delay.

Maybe it’s a combination of all three causes. In any case, something is clearly taking up too much resources during startup time. To get to the bottom of the mystery, you need to follow a couple of step-by-step instructions to find and resolve the issue. Ready? Here’s how!

Find Out Exactly How Long Windows 7 Needs to Start Up

Let’s start off by finding out the exact time the Windows 7 client needs to start up. And guess what, no stopwatch is required! Windows 7’s very own Event Viewer does the trick. In the following four steps you learn to measure both the raw boot time and the real life boot time (and what both mean).

1. Open up “Control Panel,” go to “System and Security” and head over to “Administrative Tools.” From here, launch “Event Viewer.”
2. Expand “Applications and Services Logs,” “Microsoft,” “Windows,” “Diagnostics / Performance,” and finally “Operational.” Now look out for the Event ID 100:
   

   This Event details how long your Windows 7 client takes for a full boot. This is what I call raw boot time.
   
   The value represents the exact time necessary to go from the first startup phase (right before the animated Windows boot logo appear) to the final stages. This is when the desktop is visible, startup programs are being loaded, and network connectivity is up and running. Remember to take this value with a grain of salt — more in Step 4!

3. As seen on the screenshot above, my test bed needed 103 seconds. That’s okay, but pretty bad compared to the original performance. The week after I installed and configured Windows 7, it needed about 46 seconds to start:
   
   In my example, this is quite a loss in performance: From 46 to 103 seconds!

   You can find the original boot up time if you sort the list by “Event ID” and look for the earlier couple of entries.

   Note: I wouldn’t necessarily take the very first boot log for a comparison. In the first couple of days after installation, Windows 7 needs to adapt the SuperFetch feature to all programs and install updates during boot up.

4. You have the “Raw boot time” value now. As I said, this value doesn’t necessarily represent the actual startup performance. Even though the desktop is visible and you have a working internet connection your PC may behave incredible sluggishly. For example, even launching a small footprint browser like Google Chrome can take up to 10 seconds in the first minute after boot. No surprise here; Windows is still busy initializing services and paging data in and out of RAM.To get the real life boot time, double-click on the latest Event ID 100 entry, go to “Details” and check the “MainPathBootTime” value:
   
   Phew! Another 38 seconds until Windows 7 is done with all its “post-boot” workload and I am actually able to work with the PC.

It’s important to watch both the raw boot time and real life boot time to troubleshoot a slow startup!

Step-by-Step: Finding Boot Delays

If you’re plagued by a slow startup, there is probably more than one problem going on. And guess what: Windows 7 knows them all. The “Diagnostic Performance” category (mentioned above) keeps a record of all startup issues. Simply sort the list by “Task Category”…

…and go through all the events you see in the “Boot Performance” category. Look for “Warnings” and “Critical” errors. The following entry is a prime example:

This event clearly shows that MsMpEng.exe needs 26 seconds to start, which is 10 seconds longer than normal! If this event only crops up once, you don’t need to go to Red Alert. However, if you see the same warning more than once, then this is definitely a call to action.

Eliminating Boot Delays

Next up: Commonly found causes for boot delays! The following problems originate from a dozen computers of a client who asked me for troubleshooting advice. In each case, I’ll explain how I treated these issues.

Problem: WLIDSVC.EXE needs more time to start up.
Diagnosis/Solution: First of all, I evaluated if my client really needs the Windows Live ID Service,  which is responsible for linking a local user account to the Windows Live ID for an automatic logon. As he really did not know what it is and never used it, I decided to completely uninstall the service:

Problem solved! That actually took three seconds off the startup process. It’s not much, but a penny saved is a penny earned.  If his business depended on Windows Live, I would have used the repair option to reinstall the service or I would have looked for a newer version.

Problem: The Eventlog service suddenly needs more time to run.
Diagnosis/Solution: I did absolutely nothing. It’s important to pay attention to which service is slow; explicitly check the service or file you see (“File Name”). Make sure it’s not in any way crucial to your business. Google for it, if necessary! Also, “Total Time” and “Degradation Time” are in the milliseconds – nothing to worry about.

Problem: Prefetching took longer than usual.
Solution: Windows 7’s optimization features (Prefetch and SuperFetch) took longer than usual to optimize performance. This may be due to a newly installed program or a program that you start much more frequently. Both may cause Windows 7 to optimize its cache for faster application launch times.
In this particular case, I didn’t see a reason to react. I noticed this event coming up every one or two weeks; that’s normal behavior for Windows 7 as it’s adapting its caching routines mentioned above.

Problem: The Windows Audio service causes a delay during startup.
Diagnosis/Solution: This seemed like a bigger problem. Apparently, the Windows Audio service needs more time to get started. Hmm…a problem with the sound card, maybe? My first reaction proofed to be the answer. I checked the driver version of the build-in “Realtek HD Audio” sound chip and noticed that it was last updated in September 2008. I downloaded the latest drivers from Realtek and installed it; the error never came up again!
If you see these kinds of driver related issues in your event log, I suggest updating the related driver. This IT Expert Voice article helps: “Doing the Driver Dance: Updating and Maintaining PC Drivers.”

Problem: MsMpEng.exe causes a noticeable boot delay.
Diagnosis/Solution: Microsoft Security Essentials (MsMpEng.exe) added a significant amount of startup time to the boot process. Obviously, disabling it was out of the question; security comes first! Reinstalling MSE did not help things. In this case, I am basically powerless and need to wait for an update that might improve the performance of MSEs antivirus engine during startup.

Problem: NVIDIA Driver Helper Service causes a delay in startup time.
Diagnosis/Solution: The helper service that comes with all nVidia drivers doesn’t actually do much except maintain overclocked display settings. That ‘s something my client did not need. I immediately opened up “msconfig” and disabled the NVIDIA Driver Helper Service using the “Services” tab:

That took care of it.

Problem: Windows Live Messenger causes a boot delay.
Diagnosis/Solution: Although the client needed Live Messenger for external business communication, he did not necessarily want it to launch right after Windows 7’s startup. I opened up “msconfig” (see above), clicked on “Startup,” and removed the entry that belongs to “msnmsgr.exe.”

You get the drift: In each individual case I decided if the startup program or service was needed and tried to patch it. If it’s not needed, I uninstalled or disabled it. Keeping all the drivers up-do-date was also essential in reducing the Warning and Critical entries found in Event Viewer.

Step-by-Step: Finding CPU Hogs

In some cases, boot delays are not detected by Event Viewer, possibly because a specific process eats up CPU for a constant period of time. Finding this bottleneck is pretty easy using the Sysinternals Process Monitor utility. Here’s how it works:

1. Download Process Monitor. Unzip the file and open Procmon.exe with administrative privileges:
   
   
2. Stop Process Monitor from logging all the current events by clicking on “File/Capture Events.” Now go to “Options,” where you will find the crucial entry: “Enable Boot Logging.” Enable it, click on “Generate profiling events” and click “OK.”
3. Now reboot your PC. After the startup process is done, launch Process Monitor again and click on “Yes” once you see the following message:
4. Save the boot log wherever you want (on your desktop, for example). Process Monitor now generates a huge list of basically each and every boot event.

   
   591,892 events?! This is too much to bear, even for the geekiest of us. Instead, let’s focus on process that use a lot of CPU usage during boot time. To do that, click on “Tools” and go to “Process Activity Summary.”

   
   You’ll get a list of all processes that keep your PC busy. Click on “CPU” and see for yourself which is the all-time CPU hog:
   
   To get more information of its resource usage, double-click on the entry. In our example, CPU hog number one is – yet again – Microsoft’s Security Essentials. While it is relatively lightweight when Windows 7 is up and running, it can be quite a boot hog.
   All the advice I gave above still stands: Go through the entire list and get rid of processes and programs that you don’t need. If you don’t know what is behind certain entries like this one…

   

   …use your search engine to find and troubleshoot them.

5. In this list you might come across a (unnecessary) process that you can’t find using any conventional means (for example, using msconfig). In that case, try out SysInternals very own Autoruns. Autoruns lists all processes and files that are used during boot up and lets you disable them individually – no exception!

   

That’s it! With all the given advice you should be able to handle each and every boot delay that crosses your way. Go back to the Event Viewer to check if and how much all these steps affected raw boot time and real life boot time — I bet there’s a huge difference! On my client’s PCs I was able to cut boot times in half (or even less). A nice side effect that you should also consider: Now that you’ve gotten problematic services and processes out of the way, overall Windows responsiveness and performance probably has gotten a lot of better as well.

Links

What’s Taking So Long? How to Fight Slow Startup Times in Windows 7

Using the Control Panel, you can change settings for Windows. These settings control almost everything on display and functionality of Windows and they allow you to set up Windows to suit your requirements. The Panel, in my opinion, should be used only if there is a need, as a user and an awareness of the effects of the settings. Otherwise, I always recommend asking an experienced PC users for advice and help (something like what I do so even if my car as something wrong with the electrics).

Compared to Vista when Windows 7 has not only changed the face a lot. The Panel has some modifications. Open the Control Panel by first clicking the Start button and then click Control Panel.

To search for the desired panel element has the following two methods:

1. Using the search

To find an interesting setting for you, or a task that you want to run, type a word or a keyword in the search box which can be found in the upper right corner. For example, type ‘sound’ to find all tasks related with settings for the sound card, system sounds and the volume control in the taskbar.

2. Browse

You can browse the Control Panel by clicking on various categories.

Tip

When you browse the Control Panel, you can quickly jump to an item in the list by typing the first few letters of the items name. To switch to settings related to ‘sound’, just type sou. The first panel item that begins with the letters sou i then selected in the window. You can of course also use the arrow key (up, down, left, right) to navigate through the Control Panel items.

When you open the Control Panel in Windows 7, it will be open by default in Category View, with about 30 choices, the system or adapt to penetrate deeper into the categories of the Control Panel. Toggle the view to be ‘Small Icons’ to, so be delivered to an already 55 customization options for different tasks. Oliver Scheer wrote in his diary for Windows 7 a detailed article about the panel, more than worth a look: T-36: Control Panel

Secret Windows control center or secret control panel?

In the Internet it is often pointed to a tip that will unlock a secret control center or secret panel in Windows Vista and Windows 7.
It is often said that one or the other element of this Panel, in the normal way would never get to see.. now you can decide on your own, wheter these rumours are true or not..

To see all available Control Panel items, just use this string..

shell:::{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

Open an Explorer Window and copy/paste this string in the address bar

you can also copy/paste it in the run dialog or just press the Windows Key once and paste it there..

This will open ‘a hidden/very secret’ All Tasks window:

Alternatively you can create a folder called ‘All Tasks’ to open the All Tasks window..

The name of the folder must be ‘All Tasks.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}’. When you hit the enter key to save the folder, the string {ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C} will disappear.

Questions/Comments? feel free to write..

If you need to resize partitions from Windows 7, you don’t need a third-party tool. Just like you have on Windows Vista, you can resize partitions in Windows 7.

How to resize a partition in Windows 7?

In order to resize partitions in Windows 7, you have to open the Disk Management utility. To do that, go to the search bar in your Start menu and type ‘create and format’. Now click on the link that comes up on top.

In the Disk Management window that appears, you’ll see all partitions of your computer listed one by one.

Right click on the partition that you want to resize, and then choose the ‘Shrink Volume’ option. Windows will now query for available disk space.

In the Shrink Volume window that appears next, type the amount you want to shrink by in the ‘Enter the amount of disk space you want to shrink in MB’ label. For example, to shrink the partition from 25 GB to 20 GB, type 5000 in the text box.

Click Shrink. You’ve just resized a partition in Windows 7 and shrunk it!

If you want to increase the size of a partition without shrinking it, use the Extend Volume option from the right click menu.

That’s how you resize partitions in Windows 7! Disclaimer: Make sure that you backup all your data before resizing. We’re not responsible for any damage caused.

This command sets the required configuration to enable remote management of the local computer. By default, this command creates a WS-Management listener on HTTP.

Setting up the brand new PowerShell v.2 remotely in a domain environment is easy: simply run

Set-WSManQuickConfig

As long as you have proper privileges to run this command, it does everything automatically: it runs the WinRM service, sets up a PowerShell listener and a firewall exception. To play with remotely, run this on every computer you want to connect to as it is required on both ends. Then, run any command remotely like this:

Invoke-Command { Stop-Process Spooler -force -whatif } -computername test123

You should note  that remote by default requires Kerberos authentication, so it will only work in a domain environment. You learn how to configure WSMan appropriately to make it work in simple peer-to-peer environments, in another tip.

Here’s another Blog Post from Tobias @powershell.com

Test-Driving Remoting In Windows 7

Remoting is among one of the most popular and powerful new PowerShell V2 features. What this means is that starting with PowerShell V2 (and starting with Windows 7 only because downlevel OS will support V2 remoting only in a future update), you can connect to other PowerShell V2 machines and run commands, scripts and jobs remotely. Very cool.

Unless you work in a configured AD-Environment, setting up and test-driving remoting isn’t that easy, though. By default, in a peer-to-peer environment,  remoting is dead. I’d like to show you today in three easy steps how to set up a test peer-to-peer environment that you can use to play, show off and demo V2 remoting.

    * This will show you how to set up the "new" V2 remoting using WinRM which requires PowerShell V2 on both ends.
    * Yes, there are other remoting techniques such as the old DCOM which will continue to work and neither require WinRM nor PS V2 (for example, use Get-WMIObject -computerName 10.10.10.10 to connect to that machine using classic DCOM)

What you need to make it happen…

To play with V2 remoting in a peer-to-peer scenario, this is what you need:

Ingredients:

    * 2x Windows 7 (one of which can be running inside Windows Virtual PC if you like)
    * both machines may not be joined to a domain(!)

Things are turned off out-of-the-box…

First of all, figure out the IP addresses assigned to both machines and make sure they can reach each other via network. In this example, I will be using machine A with 192.168.2.105 and machine B with 192.168.2.107, so make sure you replace the IP addresses with yours.

If you’d like to establish a remote connection from machine A to machine B, you would use Enter-PSSession, but if you try like this:

Enter-PSSession 192.168.2.107

the cmdlet will bark at you and come up with all kinds of reasons in red letters stating why what you are trying to do is absolutely ridiculous.

The simple fact is: the mechanism behind remoting which is called WinRM has not yet been set up to accept a remoting connection nor is it likely that the WinRM service is running at all yet. WinRM is secure by default, so you need to start it and open doors manually. What it also means is that you and only you will be liable if things go wrong and you trash your corporate infrastructure. So to prevent this from becoming a career-limiting move, you should set up a separate test environment to play with.

Step 1: Enable WinRM on both machines

The first thing you want to do is call Set-WSManQuickConfig. This is actually your door-opener, and to successfully launch this command, you will need to (a) have admin privs and (b) be sure you do want to open the doors. Specifically, the command does the following:

    * It makes sure the WinRM service is running and sets the startmode to Automatic so WinRM will be started automatically in the future. This enabled the computer to be connected via WinRM
    * It sets up a WinRM "listener" which is listening to incoming WinRM requests via http: from any IP address
    * It sets up a firewall exception so incoming WinRM requests aren’t rejected by your firewall any longer and make it to the WinRM service

As you can see, these really are door-openers, and unless you are working with a test system  in your closet, you may want to find out more about the possible security implications. Note also that Set-WSManQuickConfig might return an Access Denied if you try and run it on a machine that is domain-joined. Everything you read here applies to a simple peer-to-peer scenario only. Domain-joined machines are a different ballgame because they use Kerberos to securely authenticate requests and chances are in a domain-based environment you do not need all of this anyway because your IT department has decided for you.

Once you ran Set-WSManQuickConfig on both machines, your Enter-PSSession command still fails because again, for security reasons, WinRM rejects requests unless they are guarded by Kerberos or an equally safe mechanism. However, if you did everything right, both machines can now at least use WinRM to talk to each other:

Test-WSMan 192.168.2.107

This should return some protocol information.

Step 2: Add Computers to TrustedHosts list

Next, since you are working in a basic peer-to-peer environment, you need to convince WinRM that it is actually safe to accept requests from the other machine. You do this by adding the machine IPs to the list of so called "trusted hosts" – or, if you want to open the door even more, simply add a "*" to that list and allow any IP to talk to the machine. So on both machines, execute this:

Set-Item WSMan:\localhost\client\trustedhosts * –force

Step 3: Enjoy!

Once you did this last step, you are up and running. When you now enter

Enter-PSSession 192.168.2.107

after a couple of seconds of finger crossing (while WinRM sets up the remote PS session), you see the PS prompt of the remote system and now can work remotely on  that machine. Everything is working fine now, and you can also explore all the other fine remoting features. Dunno which remoting features there are? Hang in, we’ll be back shortly with more examples!

Oh, by the way, this will only work if you have created the same user account with the same password on both machines (remember, we are in a peer-to-peer environment here). Of course, the user on machine A initiating the connection needs to have admin privs on the target machine. To authenticate as someone else, use -credential (Get-Credential) as parameter.

ff you are wondering how to leave the remoting session you just opened, simply type:

exit-pssession

Links

Set-WSManQuickConfig on Microsoft Technet

Test Driving Remoting in Windows 7

Microsoft is now communicating (in an official Dutch Press Release) their method of doing a clean install using upgrade media of Windows 7. It is the same method that worked with Vista and involves installing it twice:

• Do a clean install of Windows 7 using an upgrade installation media (DVD/USB)
• When installation is done, do not activate it, as it will not accept your product key.
• Within 30 days (or before activating is required) do an upgrade installation again of using Windows 7 upgrade media (DVD/USB).
• Now you will be able to activate Windows 7 using your product key

Microsoft does not recommend doing the “upgrade hack” first mentioned by Paul Thurrott last week and which caused quite a stir, because a Microsoft blogger indirectly accused Paul of promoting piracy, which in its turn was probably caused by sites re-printing Paul’s article with titles like “Windows 7 install trick saves up to $100” Read Paul’s reply on that: Enough, Microsoft. No One Is Endorsing Piracy. Obviously. – SuperSite Blog.

The press release only mentions Vista and XP as legitable upgrade OSes. I wonder why a Windows 2000 machine would not be supported (if it has the required hardware)

The Dutch press release is not available online yet

Mitch Tulloch, a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional and lead author of the just-published (and hot-selling) Windows 7 Resource Kit (Microsoft Press, 2010; ISBN: 9780735627000; 1760 pages), has created a short e-book called “What You Can Do Before You Call Tech Support.” Here are the opening paragraphs:

Your sound card has stopped working, your computer seems sluggish, the network is down, your hard drive is clicking, you can’t view a website, your monitor is hard to read, your new webcam isn’t working, your favorite program won’t run, and a funny burning smell is coming from your computer. What can you do on your own to try to troubleshoot the issue before you pick up the phone to call tech support?

If you’re running Windows 7, quite a lot. Microsoft has included a lot of self-support tools in Windows 7 that you can try using before you seek the help of others, and we’ll examine these in a moment. Then there are the tools you were born with—your five senses (see, hear, smell, taste, touch) and most importantly your brain. And by brain I’m including your memory, experience, and capacity for logical reasoning. Finally, there is ancient and sacred lore passed on in secret from Master to Disciple over the millennia. We’ll see shortly how your brain, your senses, and the secrets of the Wise Ones can be very helpful for troubleshooting computer problems. But first let’s look at what troubleshooting tools are built into Windows 7.

You can download the e-book in XPS format here and in PDF format here.

One drawback, however, is when you need to install Windows from bootable media such as a DVD.  With Windows Vista, Microsoft Store only gave you an option to download the Windows setup files, and to install windows, you would run setup.exe to kickoff the Windows setup.

This happens when you have a PC without an existing version of Windows installed, or even a Mac where you are trying to install Windows with boot camp.

In these cases, it’s hardly convenient to have an ESD version of Windows since you have no way of starting setup without a lot of manual steps.

Windows 7 ISO files

After purchasing your downloadable Windows 7 edition on Microsoft Store, you now have the option of several types of downloads.  By default, we offer the 32-bit version of the edition you purchased that can be downloaded and Windows setup can be kicked off right away.  This is the version that most of our customers be downloading.

However, in addition to this, we also now offer a set of “Advanced” download options that gives you choice of 64-bit installer and both 32-bit and 64-bit ISO files!

Offering ISO files in addition to our regular “installer” versions, helps customers that need both the convenience of a download but also need physical media to boot from.

The Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool

Our team is committed to creating the best experience for downloading software from Microsoft.  We previously created the Microsoft Store Download Manager to help with the download process.

To burn an ISO to DVD you can use any of the many free or commercial applications that are available.   However, majority of these programs don’t provide easy ways to create bootable USB Keys in addition to DVDs.

We created the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool (WUDT) to help customers that have more advanced needs for their Windows 7 installation and need an easy way to create bootable media.  The WUDT will take the ISO files from Microsoft Store and easily create either a bootable DVD or a USB Key with only a few clicks.

This is a free tool and available for immediate download.

Here is the WUDT step-by-step for creating a bootable USB Key:

After the process is completed, you can take the USB key and plug it into your target installation PC and choose to boot from the USB Key which will automatically start the Windows 7 installer.  If you chose to create a bootable DVD instead, the process is nearly identical except that you’ll boot from the DVD.

For answers to frequently asked questions, please see our FAQ.

When you run your thumb down the list of new features and improvements in Windows 7 (see the feature comparison chart at tinyurl.com/win7featuregrid), you’re bound to wonder how you’re going to get your arms around all that new technology so that you can deliver it to your users without too much disruption. Following are 10 steps that can help you accomplish that goal.

Top 10 Things

1. Get to know Windows 7 on a first-name basis.

2. Learn Windows PowerShell.

3. Plow through licensing.

4. Focus on strategic improvements.

5. Expand the deployment scope.

6. Prepare for distributed security.

7. Virtualize your desktops.

8. Evaluate enterprise features.

9. Build compatibility safety nets.

10. Remove your users’ local-admin rights.

Links

The 10 Things to Do First for Windows 7

Links

Download Microsoft Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor

As the official Windows 7 launch is set in motion, a bunch of new content is being released online to support the wider public availability. To kick things off, a handful of new first-party theme pack have been released on Windows.com, but with a twist.

In addition to a number of new international themes released featuring photographs from different regions of the world, 14 sponsored themes are also available for download with wallpapers sourced from various notable brands. They range from movies to sports cars, video games and even refreshment beverages (from both Coke and Pepsi!).

As time goes on, I’d expect more companies to jump on this opportunity as an easy and fun way to promote their products and brand. Music label EMI has already planned a whole site dedicated to branded Windows 7 theme packs.

Links

Microsoft Windows 7 Personalization Gallery