Newshot Microsoft Deliberately Slowed Down Win11 Startup App Loading: Aimed at Preventing Multiple Apps from Competing for System Resources; Editing Two Registry Entries Can Cut It from 150 Seconds to 30 Seconds
IT Home, November 13 — According to a report today by the tech media outlet Windows Latest, Microsoft actively delayed the loading time of some startup applications when designing Windows 11, in order to prevent multiple programs from consuming too many system resources when launching simultaneously. However, a user has successfully shortened the wait time for all startup apps to finish loading from 2 minutes 30 seconds to about 30 seconds by modifying the registry.
Reddit user u/PersianMG found that although the system itself boots quickly, other startup programs such as Discord and Teams still load slowly, causing the whole process to take a long time.
By inspecting the boot process with the Windows Performance Toolkit, he found that the system had long idle waiting periods, and that no single application was noticeably slowing down the overall startup progress.
He then created an entry named Serialize in the registry and set two DWORD parameters in it to 0, ultimately shortening the complete loading time of startup apps from 150 seconds to 30 seconds.
He explained that before the modification, applications typically began loading only about 1 minute 50 seconds after system boot, whereas after the modification they start at about 20 seconds and finish loading within the following 5 seconds. In addition, other users have reported improvements of varying degrees.
One user with an Intel Core Ultra 270K Plus processor and an RTX 5080 graphics card shortened the wait time for startup apps from 90 seconds to 47 seconds after setting WaitForIdleState to 0; after also adjusting the app startup order, it was further reduced to 36 seconds.
IT Home notes that Microsoft's official documentation actually explains this mechanism. According to Microsoft's documentation on the Run and RunOnce registry keys, Windows does not guarantee that these programs will run immediately after startup; the system may choose to delay starting programs in the registry keys and the Start menu startup group to avoid them interfering with each other.
Microsoft engineer Raymond Chen also explained this design earlier in the official developer blog The Old New Thing. Windows prioritizes preparing programs that users can clearly perceive, such as File Explorer, before handling applications in the startup group. If a large number of programs read data from disk and start at the same time, system resources may become concentrated, and the Start menu may even fail to open properly.
This adjustment involves two registry parameters: StartupDelayInMSec and WaitForIdleState. The former controls the fixed delay before Explorer starts startup applications, while the latter determines whether Windows needs to wait for the system to enter an idle state before starting the relevant programs. Users who want to try it can follow these steps:
First, press Win + R, type regedit and press Enter to open the Registry Editor.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
Under the Explorer key, create a new key named Serialize, then create two DWORD (32-bit) values in it:
- StartupDelayInMSec: set to 0
- WaitForIdleState: set to 0
After that, restart the computer. It is recommended to create a system restore point before making changes. If setting them to 0 still has no effect, try changing StartupDelayInMSec to 1. To restore the original state, simply delete the Serialize key.
In addition, this adjustment is not suitable for all computers. When Windows Latest tested it on a lower-spec virtual machine, it also observed a shortened loading time for startup apps, but it still had to wait about one minute. The author believes that low-performance devices should not disable the startup delay mechanism, because launching a large number of apps simultaneously may again cause contention for system resources.
Furthermore, this registry adjustment only changes when Windows allows applications to begin starting; it does not speed up the applications' own loading, and it has no obvious effect on most Microsoft Store apps. Therefore, for computers with lower specs and many startup programs, keeping Windows' default startup delay mechanism may be more appropriate.
- "Microsoft Optimizes Win11 Modern Standby: Less Sleep Above 80% Battery, Faster Sleep Below 10%"
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- "Run and RunOnce Registry Keys"
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