The Task Manager has a useful ‘Startup’ tab in Windows 10 and 8.1, that shows all apps set to automatically launch when the system boots. It provides various details about these apps but one of the less discussed features is the ability to find the startup time of an app in Windows.
From the Task Manager, you can easily disable and enable Startup items but also see how they impact your system at boot, which can be high, medium or low.
How to find the startup time of an app in Windows
When trying to optimize system boot time, Task Manager’s Startup tab is the first place you should go and investigate.
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del and select Task Manager from the options to open it. Click on the Startup tab.
There, right-click on any of the columns and select ‘CPU at startup’ from the menu. This will add a new column to the startup tab called ‘CPU at startup’ which shows how long apps have used the CPU the last time your system booted.
Clicking on the column’s header will sort the apps based on ascending or descending ‘CPU at startup’ values. As you can see, the time values are in milliseconds, because this is the only time measurement unit that’s relevant for the CPU.
Obviously, the apps with a high startup impact are using the CPU for longer at system boot. With this new column, you can better understand the impact level of an app at startup. For example, some apps can use the CPU for less time but still have a high startup impact.
Nevertheless, you can use this information when deciding which startup items you should disable to speed up your system’s boot time. I realize some apps you just cannot remove from the Startup list since you absolutely need them to automatically launch when Windows starts but at the very least you can make an informed decision when you disable certain items.
