Forum Discussion
Call me crazy, if you like...
You can call me crazy if you like, but I find it weird how Windows has not improved, at least in usability, since basically Vista.
To illustrate: All my computers take around 3 minutes to load into windows. And all of them have enterprise quality NVMe drives (work laptop using 7600MB/s, gaming laptop using 8400MB/s and desktop using 7500MB/s drive; The max transfer rate in reality is 780MB/s). So why the hell are they taking so long? From my perspective, the 17 second boot seems like false advertisement.
Now, what might make people think that I am crazy is:
I have been waiting for an solution to make my computers into "standalone dummy machines". Where there would be separate disk for an OS revision, maybe as read-only, that would be updated only with cumulative updates keeping the disk alive for far longer. And an separate disk for registry and updates. And addition for that, an disk for custom software.
I am so tired of having to reinstall Windows each time something goes wrong with settings. Once I had to do it 4 times, to get everything set-up correctly.
The "Settings" (update and registry) disk can be on the same physical drive as custom software. But keeping everything on one disk is just outdated design.
Namely I would like at times to boot up Windows without all the other programs, just to use word or write an email. And that does not exclude the use of Microsoft Account or Onedrive.
In addition, it would be great is there was an quick registry fixer. Where with a push of a button, the registry could be reset to Windows and it's updates. And when an external drive with custom software is connected, upon application/software/game launch, it would check the registry and allow adding/fixing registry entries with one button.
It is baffling how much time people spend on setting up their computers for usage.
But those are my thoughts on making some improvements to Windows. And maybe then, I have an actual reason to wait several minutes for the Windows to boot from an cold-boot.
1 Reply
Hi,
You’re definitely not crazy — a lot of what you describe touches on real architectural challenges in Windows, especially around boot time and system state.
A few points that may help clarify things:
✔️ Boot time isn’t limited by NVMe speed
Modern Windows boot is dominated by:
- driver initialization
- firmware/UEFI time
- security stack (VBS, HVCI, Secure Boot)
- services starting in parallel
Storage throughput plays a very small role once you’re above SATA speeds.
✔️ The “separate OS / settings / apps” idea exists in several forms
Windows already has components that go in this direction:
- Windows Sandbox / VMs → clean, disposable environments
- Windows Reset / Cloud Reset → rebuilds system state without reinstalling
- Provisioning packages → reapply configuration quickly
- FSLogix / profile containers (in enterprise) → separate user state from OS
- Windows Update for Business → staged OS images
Not exactly what you describe, but the concepts are there.
✔️ Registry reset is harder than it sounds
The registry is deeply intertwined with:
- drivers
- services
- COM registrations
- application state
Resetting it safely requires more than restoring a file — which is why Windows uses component-based servicing instead.
Still, your idea of a “clean state boot” is interesting, and it’s something Microsoft has been exploring through virtualization‑based approaches.
If you want, I can expand on how Windows handles OS state today and why some of these ideas are harder to implement than they seem.
