Summary
Even though storage plays the biggest role in boot times, it’s hardly a factor these days because SSDs are the standard for primary storage and they’re superfast. Yet your system may still boot slowly, and the cause may not be the storage drive but other factors like hardware initialization, the Windows bootloader, the BIOS/UEFI, and more. There are multiple ways to speed up Windows boot, but you may not find them on every system, and some have their own drawbacks. I tried them all, including Fast Boot, MCR, and some Windows settings, and ranked them from least valuable to most effective. How I tested each boot time Three passes for each fix on the same system Since this is a proper benchmark, I tested everything on a single PC with the same hardware and configuration: a Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU, 32GB DDR5 RAM, and an RX 6700 XT GPU. Boot time is the time from startup until the Windows desktop is usable. I tested these results across three trials, used the median as the result, and compared it against the baseline. To be fair, I didn’t enable the settings together. Also, aside from the time saved, I’ll consider other factors, like drawbacks, to rank these fixes. Fast Boot Shorter boot, shakier stability Fast Boot, often confused with Fast Startup, is a BIOS/UEFI-level setting meant to reduce boot time, but with certain drawbacks. Before Windows boots, your system runs a BIOS-level check across all your hardware, called the POST process. Normally, your system checks for USB devices, expansion cards, and all external and internal hardware, which adds to boot time. Fast Boot skips through most of these hardware checks to reach the OS faster. However, this also means the initial BIOS access menu appears almost instantly, and you’ll probably need to troubleshoot your system after any hardware change. Fast Boot gives you two options: Fast Boot and Ultra Fast Boot, and with the latter enabled, I saved about 2 seconds on my boot time, mostly because the BIOS access menu time shortened significantly. However, adding new hardware to a USB or PCIe slot can sometimes cause the system not to detect it, and dual-booting becomes a headache because the BIOS initialization screen is so short. With skipped hardware checks and minimal time saved, Fast Boot isn’t really a good boot-time fix. Disabling Startup applications Rarely moves the needle at startup, but the system benefits as a whole Depending on how many third-party apps you’ve installed, loading them can take a toll, and they’re set to start alongside Windows, which eats into OS load time. Disabling startup apps, both third-party and first-party, speeds up Windows boot time by freeing up RAM and reducing what the system has to read from the drive. While this setting isn’t meant to impact boot times directly, disabling startup apps can still make a difference because, depending on how many apps you have, they can burden your system. While I was only saving about 2–3 seconds with startup apps disabled, the real savings come from more available system resources, so it’s a good setting to enable for general Windows use (definitely better than Fast Boot). Storage maintenance A small boost that keeps your SSD healthier overall Even though SSDs are lightning fast and can load Windows in seconds, the advertised and ideal speeds don’t hold up forever. Once you reach a storage threshold, your drive will start to slow down. That threshold is around 75–80%, but personally, I don’t recommend filling it past 60% on the drive where Windows is installed. SSDs need empty blocks to move around and optimize storage with SLC cache and garbage collection. That is why you’ll notice Windows starts to slow down once your drive hits the red status in Explorer, which means it’s nearing its limit. For starters, I’d recommend moving large files, like media, to a secondary drive and not installing most programs on the drive where Windows is located. Generally, leave the drive alone whenever you install anything. Beyond that, you can clean your drive by removing cache, leftover update files, and more. Even though this saves only a second at boot, cleaning and maintaining your drive is essential and will benefit you in normal Windows use as well, which is why it isn’t ranked at the bottom of the list. Fast Startup Faster boot with the cost of driver and hardware flexibility Compared to Fast Boot, Fast Startup is a Windows-level setting with the same intent: to save boot time. This also means Fast Startup won’t affect the POST time, and it directly targets the time it takes to load Windows. It works by saving the kernel to the drive after each shutdown, much like hibernation. While I saved nearly 4 seconds in the time it takes to reach Windows, this hibernation process took up a big chunk of space on the drive where Windows is installed. Also, this makes it hard for driver or hardware changes to apply since the system isn’t being fully shut down. Regardless, Fast Startup saved 4 seconds of my boot time, which is a big figure. Hibernation mode Same benefits as Fast Startup, without locking out cold boots Even though Fast Startup is essentially a hibernation mode, both rely on the hiberfil.sys file, and there’s a slight difference between the two settings. Fast Startup is more of a hybrid option that saves the kernel to the drive, while hibernation mode saves the entire session to your drive, including the running apps and, of course, the kernel itself. Fast Startup isn’t exactly a cold boot, but it does start the system after a power cut. However, with hibernation, you can shut down the PC at any time, so you can cold boot without worrying about driver or hardware changes, making it better than Fast Startup. Hibernation reduces boot time and saves about 7 seconds compared to a cold boot, but it isn’t a true fix because the system doesn’t fully shut down. MCR mode This AMD-exclusive feature cuts boot time by the biggest margin with no downsides The best boot-time fix for Windows is an AMD-exclusive feature, found only on DDR5 RAM, called MCR (Memory Context Restore). The biggest factor affecting Windows load times is the memory training process, and your system goes through this step every time, where your CPU and motherboard calibrate DDR5 RAM to ensure stable operation. However, it doesn’t need to do so every time unless, of course, you’ve changed your memory profiles or replaced the RAM altogether. MCR helps restore the previous RAM profile data, so your system doesn’t have to train again. In doing so, boot times are cut drastically, more than any other fix on this list. Saving 7 seconds with no downside, MCR is the best boot-time fix, but you can only enable it on AMD systems on the AM5 platform. Which boot-time fixes are worth enabling? There are other fixes beyond the aforementioned to save boot time, and I’ve tested them as well, but they were too negligible, saving only milliseconds. Registry tweaks and disabling Windows features will have little impact on boot times; even when they do, it’s usually small, and enabling them is complex and risky. Even on this list, fixes like Fast Boot aren’t great and, for the time saved, they come with a major stability trade-off. However, some fixes like disabling startup apps and MCR are really beneficial, and you can make the most of hibernation too; just don’t abuse the feature.