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I built a home workstation 2 years ago, including a Samsung EVO SSD (PCIe/NVME interface) and have enjoyed a snappy system and literally 6-8 second boot up times since then.

...

Until the forced update to Windows 10 Build 1903 surprised me yesterday. Now my boot times easily exceed 60 seconds.

During this compulsory contemplation period I typically start cursing at Microsoft and the the whole forced upgrade philosophy, and the frustration of having "solved" my PC boot time once upon a time only to have it forcibly unsolved for me. By the time I get to login I am so angry I can't remember what I was planning to do with this increasingly frustrating PC experience. Yes, I'm in my late 40's and get off my lawn!

This bothers me, but I'm up for doing something about it besides complaining.

My system has an i7-6700K, Samsung 960 EVO, and 64GB RAM. In my understanding, upgrading any of these to the latest / greatest will only give me modest percentage improvements to where I am now, of maybe 20% or a bit more. The PCIe/NVME interfaced on an SSD was an insane upgrade at the time, but what Samsung giveth, Microsoft taketh away.

There are no order of magnitude upgrades left at this point. Ryzen CPUs have about 5X the context switching speed of the comparable Intel CPU's after all the Spectre/Meltdown mitigations, but that is narrow metric not likely to cut my boot times back down to 1/5th of what they have become.

Any Ideas?

  1. A $1000 Optane based SSD might more than double the performance my current SSD, but could even that bring my 60 second boot times back to 30 seconds or under?
  2. Paper based positive affirmations taped to the monitor to reduce the frustration and put this wasted time to good use?
  3. Zen meditation? / Prozac?
karel
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DanO
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1 Answers1

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Something got broken when Windows was updated. If you have booted several times and the slow boot persists, better go back to the previous Windows version and block the 1903 update for a few months (or even until the next major release).

There is alternative advice that I would not recommend here, which is to do Repair Install of Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade. I do not recommend it, since, while it might possibly fix the problem, it will make the rollback to the previous version just impossible.

Take good backups before starting.

To rollback to the previous Windows version

  • Enter the Settings app
  • Click Update & Security > Recovery
  • Under "Go back to the previous version of Windows 10", click on Get started
  • Answer the informational question, click Next to advance in the questions
  • When Windows will offer to check for updates, click No, thanks
  • Enter when asked the password you used to sign in to Windows
  • At the message "Thanks for trying out this build", click "Go back to earlier build"
  • Wait for everything to finish.

Block Windows updates

The instructions below are for Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise and Education versions.

  • Enter the Settings app
  • Click Update & Security > Advanced options
  • Note the settings that are in effect, should you wish to go back in the future
  • Under "Choose when updates are installed":
    • Set the drop-down box to "Semi-Annual Channel". This means waiting 60 days after release.
    • Set the Feature Update deferral to 365 days.

In theory, and for as long as Microsoft honors these settings, you have now specified to wait for the next version of Windows, version 1903 in this case, to age for 60 days ("Semi-Annual Channel"), and after that an additional 365 days. Undo this when you wish to try your luck again, or when the next major update comes along, or if a newly discovered vulnerability mandates the update.

For more information, including screenshots, and for advice for Windows 10 Home, see the article How to block the Windows 10 May 2019 Update, version 1903, from installing.

harrymc
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