I just updated the latest Windows 10. 1 1/2 hours no problems. PC is a lot faster now as well

Roy

I suspect that the main cause is the startup drive. When an operating system starts up it needs to load lots of code from the startup drive. This takes time, quite a lot of time if the startup drive is a normal hard drive. Hard drives (also known as HDDs) have a disk inside that spins. The speed of reading data from an HDD is limited by the speed at which it spins. If you swapped the HDD for a solid state drive (known as an SSD), you can read data much faster, because it doesn't spin. SSDs are typically 5 to 10x faster than HDDs. When I replaced the HDD with an SSD in my computer, the boot time reduced from about 3 minutes to around 25 seconds!

Smart phones have a startup drive analogous to an SSD, but even then they take a long time to boot – witness how long it takes to do a complete restart.

Mike

Because of the problems you describe before going to bed I now use UPDATE & RESTART when updates want to download, if you change settings to Turn Off with no activity for 1 hour all that will happen is your battery will get a full charge, unless like me you are up to use the bathroom in the night when the power can be switched off.

When you switch on the next morning there should be no extended delay in Windows opening, if there is and all caches are cleared as well as temporary files deleted perhaps your anti-virus program or malware program are slowing the computer down, view what's running in Task Manager to check power hungry programs.

Emgee

The automatic updates with Windows 10 are indeed annoying. However, since configuring them through the group policy options, I can now choose when to download and install. Just like the good old days.

I think this is a very dangerous subject, to judge by the animosity provoked by previous threads on the relative merits of Windows or Linux.

However, it always seems to me that once a Windows user, always a Windows user, and thus failing to see the merits of a possible change. But of course, what you use is entirely your own decision.

Gary has a good point about a change to an SSD as the boot drive – they can make the boot drive much faster than the old mechanical drives – one disadvantage {maybe} is that they are not usually available in the large sizes of the mechanical drives {yet!}

Another issue which slows machine booting is that all OS's (Windows, Linux, whathaveyou) start background processes during booting, allegedly to improve operating speed. Often some of these processes are unnecessary, so one thing I always do is go into the startup and stop the unwanted processes from starting. I admit you need to know what you are doing, but there is information available online how to do this, if you want to learn more – there are enough people posting on this forum who can answer specific questions as well..

Gaunless also makes a valid point – Linux has been very easy to use for several years now, thanks to the efforts of the developers of Debian, Ubuntu, Mint and others, and its free: you can even try most versions out from a USB stick, without having to install it., and as Gaunless says, LInux nowadays not only supports older computers, but has support for the latest machines, and uses much less space on the disk.

Please note that I make this post in the interests of informing people who may not be aware of alternatives – I have no wish to fire up the usual fanatics.

I know several people who eventually gave Linux a try, and never went back to Windows.

Well of course the main reason is that the phone is already powered on and booted up, only the screen is turned off. If you had to boot the phone, Android or Apple, from powered down it would probably be comparable to Windows boot up.

Must admit I prefer Linux and only run Windows 10 so that I can use Alibre, I wish they would port it to Linux but that is unlikely to happen as it uses too many Windows specifics like DirectX and the various .Net addons. Unfortunately Alibre won't run nicely in a virtual machine nor under Wine.

Apple systems OSX, Android, Linux and others are all derived from Unix so have many similarities once you delve under the bonnet. My advice just use what you get on with and works for you. One day someone will invent something completely new but at the moment most systems are tied to outdated hardware and the hardware is tied to outdated software, round and round we go

John

When a considerable proportion of items on the news are about hacking events that have taken place recently, for example , the Woodland Trust and Email servers powered by Microsoft, wouldn't you want your operating system to be patched with security updates as often as in neccessary? I would.

Plus 1 vote for putting the C drive at least on SSD.

Having said all that things do seem to be moving over to phones.

Edited By stevetee on 18/03/2021 11:54:42

You wrote " I don't want suggestions for 'fixes' as I've guaranteed to have already tried / implemented them with no perceivable difference."

Hence you will have done the following:-

Pressed Ctrl + Alt + Del keys together when your pc has finally loaded up.
Then clicked on Task Manager.
Clicked on the tab "Startup" showing you the impact that start up progs are having on your computer's resources.
You will have disabled any progs you don't need at start up.

Also, if you have a 'big' antivirus prog installed e.g. Norton, you will have already checked that it's likely to be examining all running boot processes etc when starting and you will be aware it can delay things appreciably.

Yes, absolutely a SSD (Solid State Drive) will speed things up no end. But you'll be well aware of the numerous Windows "gotchers!" in transferring your operating system from a HDD to a SSD.

" I just wonder if this type of OS is just becoming outdated and too top heavy."
I don't find it (Win10) "outdated" in any way. Not sure what "top heavy" means but in its current manifestation, it certainly occupies a vast number of gigabytes.

Hi there, all,

Regarding solid state drives, I read somewhere recently a caution that Windows 10 performs drive defragmentation in the background.

It is my understanding (always prepared to be corrected) that defragmentation and the internal housekeeping of flash memory (including solid state drives) don't get on!

I know that there has been some anxious debate regarding the possible damage to flash devices resulting from the use of repetitive random string over-writing type of 'wiping' software.

By the way: we all know what we mean but the term 'solid state hard drive' is manna for the pedantic. The alternative description, 'non-volatile store' might be better.

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

After buying my first iPad I was hooked on using a tablet. We still have a desktop for some jobs but it doesn’t get used nearly as much now. Some of the top end iPads are billed as laptop replacements and I’m not surprised. Battery life in particular is very good.

Don’t worry about windows users, they usually have some insurmountable lockin that prevents use of Linux – eg our Editor will no doubt mention the problems he encountered in past with Linux. But seriously there are many high cost commercial programs that lock purchasers into Windows even tho there are a growing number of alternative community supported alternatives. Linux is mostly free of the ‘report back to base spying’ of many Windows programs

You can switch off defragging for an SSD, it doesn't speed one up as there's no seek time with an SSD.