Pavilion boots slow after Win 10 upgrade

[RubyTheRed]

I recently updated my laptop to Windows 10 and now it boots very slowly. I have posted this question three times now, and every time the post is being deleted. I hope someone can actually see the post this time.

[WAWood]

@RubyTheRed 

I've upgraded around a dozen PCs from Win7 to Win10 and in ALL cases, they boot faster than they did under Win7.

Is it just the booting that is slow -- from power on to displaying the HP logo?

Or is it the time taken to get to the desktop from the power on?

IF the latter, Win10 loads a LOT of processes, more than Win7, and that can slow the desktop loading considerably.

To check this, do the following:

1) Do Ctl-Alt-Del and select Task Manager

2) Select more details

3) Select Startup tab

4) Disable ALL startup tasks

5) Reboot

IF the PC now boots faster, then one of the Startup tasks is really slowing down the PC.

To see which one, you would have to repeat the above, re-enabling one task at a time and rebooting.

When the PC then boot slowly, the last task you re-enabled is the culprit.

[RubyTheRed]

WAWood, thinks for the reply. I, too, have upgraded a lot of PCs from Windows 7 to Windows 10, and never had this issue except with this HP laptop. What happens is I get a normal boot to the Windows logo and the spinning balls. Then the logo and the balls go away, and I get a blank screen for about a minute and a half, then the balls come back and my desktop starts.  I disabled everything in startup but that had no effect. Any other ideas or suggestions? I've been thinking about trying to do a clean install, but would like to avoid that if possible. I have an SSD as my boot drive and the event log does not show any drive errors.

[WAWood]

@RubyTheRed 

If the boot files were corrupted, I would presume you would not get to the login, so that's not the problem.

Are you using a local login or an MSN login?  If it's a local login (and it sounds like is is), then I have no idea why it would take so long.

When I run into these cases, I do a Repair-Install with Win10 install media, as that will rewrite all the OS components, including the boot loader files.

While that does retain your data, settings, and apps, it might not work with your installation if the Win10 OS was preloaded by HP.

If you want to try that, then read the instructions below about using MR to make an image backup to a large USB stick or external drive  before attempting it:

------------------------

I personally prefer to use third-party Backup solutions as they tend to be both more flexible and more reliable than any built-in solutions.

Macrium Reflect (MR) provides a FREE version that can be used to image and restore partitions or entire drives.

What I recommend is the following:
1) Download and install Macrium Reflect (MR) from here: http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx
2) Run MR and choose the option: "Create an image of the partition(s) required to backup and restore Windows" to write a full backup to an external drive or USB stick
3) Use the option to create a boot USB stick or CD

My experience is that MR, when using the High Compression option, typically can compress the saved image file to about 50% of the USED space in the OS partition. This means if you have an 80GB OS partition, and 40GB is used, MR only needs about 20GB to store the image file.

I use this all the time and it typically takes less than 15 minutes to do the image backup and about the same time or less to do a restore.

Plus, MR has the option to Add a Recovery Boot Menu entry. This allows you then to boot into WinRE, and you can then use that to do a restore -- when you can't boot into Windows!

NOW, you have the means to restore a full working system from the external drive or USB stick in only a few minutes.

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You will need to use the link to download Win10 installation media and either burn a DVD or create a USB stick: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/media-creation-tool-install?ocid=ms_wol_win10

Note that when you go do download and build install media, the tool defaults to matching what is already installed on your PC (as in, Home for Home, 64-bit for 64-bit). Make sure you select the same version as needed for your PC. If you do not, the resulting media will be different and will force you to enter a NEW product code!

Once you have that media, follow the instructions in the link: http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/16397-repair-install-windows-10-place-upgrade.html

[RubyTheRed]

Thanks for the suggestions, but I am trying to avoid doing a reinstall. Yes, I am using a local login, and Windows will boot eventually. I saw on another post that the MS tool Windows Performance Recorder will record the startup process. I did that, but I don't know how to read the file to determine what is slowing the system. I was hoping to find someone who knew how to interpret the output of that file.

[WAWood]

The in-place Upgrade I linked to does not reset your system; instead, it overwrites the Windows system files and leaves everything else intact.

If it doesn't work, it does not do any damage -- which is why I recommend it.

[RubyTheRed]

I must confess I don't see what doing an in-place upgrade will accomplish. My system was running Windows 7, no problems. I upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10, and the system started having the slow boot issue. What will doing an in-place upgrade accomplish that the original upgrade didn't? This is not an issue that occurred some time later, it happened immediately after I upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10. Am I missing something?

[WAWood]

@RubyTheRed 

I've done that on systems that have become sluggish and it breathed new life into them.

But you're right -- if this started happening right away, then my guess would be stuff loaded during startup and, in that case, a repair-install would probably not accomplish anything.