I keep mine startup fairly clean and this is key to a 'fast startup'. There are about 10 different ways applications can auto start in windows and you have too

I keep mine startup fairly clean and this is key to a 'fast startup'. There are about 10 different ways applications can auto start in windows and you have too check them all, as all will be used. My laptop from 2012 is 10-30 seconds. My laptop from last year is usually under 10. My NUC from 2011 is about 30 seconds and has been consistently that for the time I have owned it. Also on older computers check to see if it is thermal throttling. As the fans/paste can stop being effective and just need to be cleaned up after some time. My parents bought this rubish computer about 3 years ago it is easily 3-5 mins to startup. Which is due to a lack of RAM (3GB, which should be plenty) and windows swapping to startup. Plus a bunch of startup apps they 'just can not live without'. I remove them, and get 'wow the computer is so much faster'. Few months later and some update to that 'must have' app will put itself back into the startup (sigh).