Hi Anvil,

I’ve had a bit of time to look into the boot process and I can share some of my observations.

If you only monitor the boot processes related to Windows the data transferred is quite small, although it is almost exclusively small random reads. What I have established however is that Windows keeps on loading well after the desktop 1st appears. I’ve also established that non Windows apps get loaded before the desktop appears, so Windows files are getting loaded in parallel with non-Window based applications.

What you have installed on the OS can therefore make a big difference in the period before the desktop appears. The amount of data that gets loaded after the desktop appears is highly variable. I’ve seen between 400MB and 1.7GB of read transfers within 15 minutes of the desktop first appearing without doing anything.

The data that gets loaded after the desktop is also predominately small random reads, although larger data transfers typically appear. The processes that generate read transfers after the desktop appears are highly variable.

I’ve kept a couple of Excel files that show pre and post desktop process that generate read transfers. They are too large to post here, but if you are interested I can email them to you.