Every windows system I've seen boots more and more slowly over time. It's not 'uninformed hokum', it's a consequence of installing programs that add startup ite

Every windows system I've seen boots more and more slowly over time. It's not 'uninformed hokum', it's a consequence of installing programs that add startup items and registry entries. There is much lousy software for Windows (besides all the spyware with which the average consumer PC is ridden) which fails to cleanup after uninstallation, and also many programs which add startup items unnecessarily. I've seen many people install a new version of windows and marvel at its amazing boot time. Then they actually install antivirus, etc and a few months go by... And the measurable fact is that soon it takes as long to boot as their old computer. You, unlike most people who maintain windows machines, probably know what you're doing. You're probably not installing and uninstalling a tom of shoddy consumer software. From your description, you're not - so your use is one anecdote regarding an atypical case and not particularly convincing. The article is interesting, but I'm referring to my personal experience with windows 98-7. Microsoft also wrote articles about the amazing work they were doing to make each of those faster, etc while in real world results, each version performed almost exactly the same as the previous version. I believe that no matter what they do, the challenge is to prevent a legion of developers of poor windows software from screwing it up.