General See Windows 11 Restart Time

Ghot · Nov 2, 2022

@Matthew Wai

I'm done with testing. Time for someone else to take the torch.

Matthew Wai · Nov 2, 2022

Ghot said:
Time for someone else to take the torch.

No one will take the torch because you are the only one who has somehow encountered the problem.
The cause will remain a mystery.

Ghot · Nov 2, 2022

Matthew Wai said:
No one will take the torch because you are the only one who has somehow encountered the problem.
The cause will remain a mystery.

Say rather that I am the only one who has "cared" about the problem.

As I mentioned in the bottom of post #45... it doesn't really matter as long as everyone is using the same file to test.
They will still be able to compare.

/edit

I wasn't really complaining. It's just that restart time is one of the very few things we can test with hardware (stopwatch).
Most things we have to rely on a benchmark (software), of some kind.

Like we can't use a stopwatch to see whose vid card or CPU is faster. There's too many variables.
We can use a stopwatch for restart time though.

That was the reason I was making suggestions for some way to get the .bat file results, closer to the stopwatch results.
IF I could write bat files like you folks can, I would just sit down and figure it out myself.

BobD · Nov 2, 2022

Ghot said:
Say rather that I am the only one who has "cared" about the problem.

As I mentioned in the bottom of post #45... it doesn't really matter as long as everyone is using the same file to test.
They will still be able to compare.

An alternative is to manually start the batch file as soon as possible after you see the desktop. It will give you a time. The auto started batch file will also start a bit later but will be irrelevant. Ideally for this it should be on the desktop but that might give you trouble. I couldn't use the desktop because of permissions problems.

Ghot · Nov 2, 2022

BobD said:
An alternative is to manually start the batch file as soon as possible after you see the desktop. It will give you a time. The auto started batch file will also start a bit later but will be irrelevant. Ideally for this it should be on the desktop but that might give you trouble. I couldn't use the desktop because of permissions problems.

That makes sense.

I was just suggesting there my be something else, besides whatever is being used now, to trigger the command prompt window with the result, as soon as the desktop appears.

That's why I checked with the stop watch in the 1st place, like a year and a half ago, maybe even two years ago.
The restart batch file said 63 seconds and I "knew" it didn't take that long.

I believe I posted the same thing a ways back in a similar topic on TenForums.
I tried to find that topic, but I couldn't.
I think it said something like... this is from SevenForum, but we can use it on Windows 10.

Matthew Wai · Nov 2, 2022

Ghot said:
there my be something else, besides whatever is being used now, to trigger the command prompt window with the result, as soon as the desktop appears.

What is being used now is the following Registry key:
HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

The problem could be that Windows does not immediately run the items listed in the key when Windows starts.

BobD said:
An alternative is to manually start the batch file as soon as possible after you see the desktop.

Another possible alternative is to use Task Scheduler instead of the said key in the batch script, but the script will then be largely complicated.

BobD · Nov 2, 2022

The problem could be that Windows does not immediately run the items listed in the key when Windows starts.

I use to do this sort of stuff a few years back. Probably Win 8.1 or 7 and anything in the Startup folder used to start quickly. With Win 11, when you see the desktop there is still much to start and I'm not talking about delayed start items. Since Win 10, MS has had a method of show the Desktop and start the rest in the background and people will consider it all running when they see the Desktop. This might be why there is such a delay between showing the Desktop and the script running. It happens on my machine also. My machine seems to spend a lot of time in Shutdown and UEFI. As soon as I see the disk activity light it shows the desktop very quickly. After the desktop shows you can still see the icons popping up in the Notification area. They probably have to complete before any autostarts.

Ghot · Nov 2, 2022

Matthew Wai said:
What is being used now is the following Registry key:
HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

The problem could be that Windows does not immediately run the items listed in the key when Windows starts.

Another possible alternative is to use Task Scheduler instead of the said key in the batch script, but the script will then be largely complicated.

Is there anyway to tie the return of the command window (with the resulting time), to the start of explorer.exe?
Whatever tells explorer.exe to start, during reboot, could do the same for the command prompt window with the time in seconds?

BobD said:
I use to do this sort of stuff a few years back. Probably Win 8.1 or 7 and anything in the Startup folder used to start quickly. With Win 11, when you see the desktop there is still much to start and I'm not talking about delayed start items. Since Win 10, MS has had a method of show the Desktop and start the rest in the background and people will consider it all running when they see the Desktop. This might be why there is such a delay between showing the Desktop and the script running. It happens on my machine also. My machine seems to spend a lot of time in Shutdown and UEFI. As soon as I see the disk activity light it shows the desktop very quickly. After the desktop shows you can still see the icons popping up in the Notification area. They probably have to complete before any autostarts.

I think I remember something about that in one of MS's marketing pitches.

BobD · Nov 2, 2022

The answer is easy. Sysinternals Autoruns will tell all.
I couldn't see Explorer.exe but I found Internet Explorer. You could use that location to start your stuff.

If you're really curious you could look for other places to autostart from. It looks like Windows starts up a lot of crap but I'm not game to remove it even though Autoruns can do it. I don't think that Autoruns shows all autostarts. Some of it is bound to be done via the Task Manager. If you'll pardon the pun then that's another big task in itself.

Edit: If you download it, it's not like many other MS files. You need to UNBLOCK the ZIP file before use.

Ghot · Nov 2, 2022

BobD said:
The answer is easy. Sysinternals Autoruns will tell all.
I couldn't see Explorer.exe but I found Internet Explorer. You could use that location to start your stuff.
View attachment 44011
If you're really curious you could look for other places to autostart from. It looks like Windows starts up a lot of crap but I'm not game to remove it even though Autoruns can do it. I don't think that Autoruns shows all autostarts. Some of it is bound to be done via the Task Manager. If you'll pardon the pun then that's another big task in itself.

Edit: If you download it, it's not like many other MS files. You need to UNBLOCK the ZIP file before use.

This pic is from Windows 10...

I wouldn't use iexplorer.exe, as MS plans to get rid of Internet Explorer completely... really soon.
The reason I picked Windows Explorer is because that IS the desktop, so to speak.

BobD · Nov 2, 2022

Ghot said:
This pic is from Windows 10...

View attachment 44012

I wouldn't use iexplorer.exe, as MS plans to get rid of Internet Explorer completely... really soon.
The reason I picked Windows Explorer is because that IS the desktop, so to speak.

I couldn't find it at a quick glance. It's now far too late and I should be in bed.

Ghot · Nov 2, 2022

BobD said:
I couldn't find it at a quick glance. It's now far too late and I should be in bed.

This is from Windows 11...

And it might not be you. Autoruns started getting weird after version 13.98
Like... not showing everything that it used to. ^^

I'm still on Autoruns 13.98 for that very reason.

Matthew Wai · Nov 2, 2022

Ghot said:
Is there anyway to tie the return of the command window (with the resulting time), to the start of explorer.exe?

See the attached screenshot. Would "At startup" or "At log on" work better? To my knowledge, "explorer.exe" will not start automatically at Windows startup.

Ghot · Nov 2, 2022

Matthew Wai said:
See the attached screenshot. Would "At startup" or "At log on" work better? To my knowledge, "explorer.exe" will not start automatically at Windows startup.

View attachment 44015

I don't know. That's the problem with Micro-speak... it's not very specific.
All I do know is that when explorer.exe starts, that's when we first "see" the desktop.
And it IS in the Winlogon key...
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

Matthew Wai · Nov 2, 2022

You may schedule a task of opening a text file via "At log on" and see whether it will be opened as soon as you see the desktop. If you want to use "Winlogon" instead of "At log on", you have to find out the relevant Event ID.

Ghot · Nov 2, 2022

Matthew Wai said:
You may schedule a task of opening a text file "At log on" and see whether it will be opened as soon as you see the desktop. If you want to use "Winlogon" instead of "At log on", you have to find out the relevant Event ID.

@Brink may know that or where to find that information?

I see this code...

Code:

:: This script was created by Matthew Wai at www.TenForums.com/members/matthew-wai.html
::—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
@echo off & mode con cols=54 lines=5 & For /F "skip=1 tokens=*" %%# in (
'"PowerShell Get-Date"') DO (Set "ET=%%#")
Title Measure the restart time & color 17 & Set "[U]=($ET-$ST).TotalSeconds"
Set "[N]=Measure_the_restart_time_via_a_batch_script_provided_by_TenForums"
Set "[F]=%ProgramData%" & Set "[C]=[DateTime]::parse" & color 17
Set "[K]=HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft"&Set "[I]= seconds to completely restart Windows."
Set "[S]=%[F]%\%[N]%.log" & Set "[L]=  It took " & Set "[P]=PowerShell.exe -Command "
If exist "%[S]%" (Echo.& Goto [Post_restart]) else (Echo.
Echo     Please firstly close all running applications.
Echo     Then press a key to restart Windows. & Pause>Nul
REG Add "%[K]%\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run" /V "%[N]%" /T REG_SZ /D """"%~f0"""" /F>Nul
%[P]%Get-Date>"%[S]%" && Shutdown -r -f -t 00 & Exit)
:[Post_restart]
For /f "delims=" %%# in ('"Type "%[S]%""') Do (set "ST=%%#")
%[P]%"&{$ST=%[C]%('%ST%');$ET=%[C]%('%ET%');echo (-join('%[L]%',%[U]%,'%[I]%'));}"
Del "%[S]%" & REG Delete "%[K]%\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run" /V "%[N]%" /F>Nul
Echo   You may press a key to close this window. & Pause>Nul & Exit
::—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

To me... except for a very few things... that looks like... Klingon or something.

However...

For a rough guess... maybe create another "name" in the Winlogon key that begins with "S" but comes after "Shell" in the alphabet. Something like "StartTime" and under that name, make the value.... whatever is needed to reopen that command prompt window and show the resulting time.

That way... explorer.exe (the desktop) would start, then we'd see the window with the time it took to restart.

I don't know if this is hard to do... or not.
It just seems to me like it's a way to make the restart time (in the .bat file result), match the stopwatch time.

It's at times like this, that I really miss... Fortran.

Matthew Wai · Nov 2, 2022

Ghot said:
@Brink may know that or where to find that information?

That information can be found on Event Viewer as shown below:

Ghot · Nov 2, 2022

Matthew Wai said:
That information can be found on Event Viewer as shown below:

View attachment 44017

I found this. I don't think it will help...

I also cleared Event Viewer, and then restarted explorer.exe
This was the only thing that came up in Event Viewer, that had anything to do with Windows Explorer.

I still like the registry idea in post #76. I don't even know if it's doable.
It "seems" like it should be doable somehow.

Matthew Wai · Nov 2, 2022

Ghot said:
I don't know if this is hard to do... or not.

It is not hard to add such a new string value into Registry, but it is hard to know what will happen as a result. You may add a string value named "Stesting" with the value data "notepad.exe" and see whether "notepad.exe" will be started after "explorer.exe" is started. Create a system restore point in advance.

Ghot said:
I found this. I don't think it will help...

The problem is that the applicable Event ID varies from PC to PC.
Therefore, I don't think "Winlogon" should be used in Task Scheduler.

Ghot · Nov 2, 2022

Matthew Wai said:
It is not hard to add such a new string value into Registry, but it is hard to know what will happen as a result. You may add a string value named "Stesting" with the value data "notepad.exe" and see whether "notepad.exe" will be started after "explorer.exe" is started. Create a system restore point in advance.

The problem is that the applicable Event ID varies from PC to PC.
Therefore, I don't think "Winlogon" should be used in Task Scheduler.

Again, I'm not placing an order here.
I was just thinking the other day... wouldn't it be nice if the Restart time results, matched the stop watch results.

For the stop watch results, we can only use the appearance of the desktop as a guide when to stop the stopwatch.

As I said long ago... the current code works for everyone that uses that batch file, and can be compared to other people's results.
In that way... the code is perfect. Well done and all that.

But... as long as you're gonna play around with things like that... it would be nice if it matched the stopwatch.
Post #76 is the best I can think of, and I don't even know if it's possible.
It was just an... idea. It's not a work order or anything.
Just something to think about.

It's like drawing pictures and writing, with icing on the tops of cakes.
It's absolutely NOT necessary... but it would be neat, if it could be done.