I recently installed Windows 7 onto a SSD, and I'm amazed by the fast boot time! One thing I can't figure out, though, is whether Windows 7 is doing anything at the start of the boot, other than animating the swirling logo. During the first few seconds after the computer's normal POST startup, between the time that the "Starting Windows" message appears and the time that the colorful dots stop swirling and become the Windows logo, there is no apparent hard drive activity. The hard drive activity light only starts to flash the instant the Windows logo is on the screen. So, my question is: Is Windows 7 doing anything during that part of the animation, other than animating? Whn booting from this SSD, that animation time is literally half the time it takes to boot to the user log in screen. If nothing is going on at that point, I'd like to disable the animation for a much faster boot time. :) Thanks!

Hi Chris_UVic, It is true that the logon speed has been improved significantly on Windows 7 system. I know your concern that the hard drive activity light starts to flash when Windows logo shows on the screen. Even though, your hard drive still does some things at the background such as, reading files into memory, identifying devices, authenticating the users credentials for login, constructing and displaying the desktop, etc. So, I am afraid we cannot do any more to reduce the boot up time since Microsoft guys have focused a lot on this issue. Also, you can refer to the following link to get more information. http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2008/08/29/boot-performance.aspxhttp://lifehacker.com/5124955/windows-7-beta-boasts-sub+30-second-boot-time Hopes helpful. :) Judy Jiang :)

Hi Chris_UVic, As Judy said, there are lot of background work being done while in this boot animation. For example: loading the kernel, device driver files, and other system component files. Actually, the product designers tried their best in improving this process both on performance and visualization. If you are interested in knowing more about this boot process, please see this MSDN blog: Engineering the Windows 7 Boot Animation. Hope this helps. Regards, Linda

I'm not sure you guys fully understood this question. I too noticed that the HDD light has stopped doing anything whilst the initial animation plays through. When i first installed 7, it did show activity, at some point it stopped showing anything until the logo completes the main animation. Most of the new machines i install also show activity during the animation, however, like the OP, mine has stopped doing this.

Use system configuration utility in the boot options tab to disable the startup animation and see if it takes less time to start.

Do we have an answer for this yet? Please read the question, it IS NOT "how to speed up boot times" IT IS "why has the HDD stopped accessing whilst the windows 7 splash screen is animating?" It used to, it does on new systems, it no longer does, any ideas?

F2CMaDMaxx, the response by ZERO Tolerance is actually a way you can tell for yourself whether it's doing anything useful. If you eliminate the animation, and your boot time decreases by the animation time, then you will have proven that it's doing nothing but the animation, no? -Noel