I’ve never been one to worry about how long it takes to start Windows, and have yet to figure out why more of the folks that obsess about that don’t just use fast start… rather than fully shutting down, the PC just hibernates, and a wakeup takes seconds.
howtogeek[.]com/243901/the-pros-and-cons-of-windows-10s-fast-startup-mode/
That said, [too] many software developers set processes &/or services to start with Windows. Whenever you add a process or service like that, there’s a chance that it will conflict with something else; it can make starting Windows take unreasonably long; it can delay some of the many critical Windows processes that also start with Windows etc. Microsoft’s aware of that, and provides two easy ways to start to get a handle on it in Win10, one in Settings, the other in Task Mgr. In my experience however they don’t always stop something from starting but may just delay it.
In 64-bit Windows there are 3 “Run” registry keys, and entries under them, with a path to the executable file, will start with Windows. The Start Menu has 2 Startup folders, and any shortcuts in them fire up with Windows too. Some apps add processes to Task Scheduler, so whatever runs whenever Windows starts. And some apps set up processes as services that always start with Windows. Most startup managing apps delete or move those registry entries or Start Menu shortcuts, which you can also do manually. Few check Task Scheduler or change service priorities – in that case you have to disable or delete a task, or in Control Panel -> Admin Tools -> Services, set a service to delayed auto-start or manual. Removing a service means tracking down all the registry entries, and hoping the install routine that set them up didn’t add something that will make Windows not start without them.
BootRacer Premium *seems* to take a different approach, acting as a middleman to start processes [e.g. apps] itself once Windows starts up, but that’s a guess. While that might not have any advantages compared to deleting a registry entry under one of the Run keys, it’s easier to put back if you change your mind. At any rate, in my Win7 32-bit VM it didn’t seem to work, so I can’t do much more than guess. In that VM I have Macrium Reflect Free installed, which has 2 processes and one service that starts with Windows. BootRacer gave the option to delete one of those 3, but after I did so and restarted it was still there, running as if nothing had changed. That doesn’t necessarily mean that BootRacer doesn’t work – it just wouldn’t work for me in that particular test.
Installing BootRacer adds the program’s folder, a couple of files in Users\ Public\ Documents, a folder in ProgramData, it adds a service, & I recorded 758 new registry entries.