- How to delay loading of specific Services in Windows 10
- Automatic (Delayed start) meaning
- Delay loading of specific Windows Services
- How to identify Windows Services delaying Shutdown or Startup
- Identify Windows Services that delay Shutdown
- Identify Windows Services that delay startup
- “Automatic” vs “Automatic (Delayed start)”
- 1 Answer 1
- Windows service delay time
- Answered by:
- Question
- How to set Delay time for Startup programs in Windows 10
- Set Delay time for Startup programs
- 1] WinPatrol
- 2] Windows Startup Helper
- 3] Startup Delayer
- 4] LaunchLater
How to delay loading of specific Services in Windows 10
Using the Windows Service Manager, you can delay the starting up of Windows services, just so you can improve your Windows boot times. The Automatic (Delayed Start) option for system services was introduced in Windows Vista, and in Windows 10/8/7, it was extended to cover all services.
Automatic (Delayed start) meaning
Windows Services are applications that typically start when the computer is booted and run quietly in the background until it is shut down.
On some older computers, it may get necessary to delay the loading of a specific Windows service for the computer to boot properly. At other times, you may want to be sure that a particular Service has started and is available for troubleshooting purposes before the other Service is started. This is where the Automatic (Delayed Start) option can help.
How does this work? Microsoft explains it as follows:
The Service Control Manager starts services that are configured for delayed automatic start after all of the automatic-start threads have finished starting. The Service Control manager also sets the priority of the initial thread for these delayed services to THREAD_PRIORITY_LOWEST. This causes all of the disk I/O performed by the thread to be very low priority. Once a service finishes initializing, the priority is set back to normal by the Service Control Manager. The combination of the delayed start, low CPU and memory priority, as well as the background disk priority greatly reduce the interference with the user’s logon. Many Windows services, including the Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS), Windows Update Client, and Windows Media Center, use this new start type to help improve logon performance after a system boot.
Delay loading of specific Windows Services
To delay the loading of Services, Run services. msc , to open Services Manager. Select the Service and double-click on it to open its Properties box.
Under Startup type, you will see four options in the drop-down menu:
- Automatic,
- Automatic (Delayed Start),
- Manual, and
- Disabled.
The Automatic (Delayed Start) option, lets Windows load such Services only after the other Services, set to Automatic have loaded. Thus, such Delayed services have to wait to start until all the Automatic services have started
The default delay time is of 120 seconds. But this can be changed by modifying the AutoStartDelay value in the following registry key:
After handling the Automatic non-delayed Services, Windows will queue a worker thread to run the Delayed services.
Do not be tempted to indiscriminately delay the starting of Services, unless you know what you are doing, lest you compromise with the performance and security of your computer – and never change the Startup type of the Service of your security software from Automatic to Automatic (Delayed Start).
KB193888 tells you how you can do it programmatically and by modifying the value in the following Registry key:
The KB article works for all Windows versions, right from Windows 2000 to Windows 10.
Read: What does Automatic (Trigger Start) and Manual (Trigger Start) mean for Windows Services?
Date: January 1, 2019 Tags: Services, Tips
How to identify Windows Services delaying Shutdown or Startup
We all have read articles online about speeding up our Windows computers. Today I am focusing on one item that can cause your Windows computer to shut down or startup slowly – and those are Windows Services. If some Service refuses to terminate or takes a long time to terminate, then the system shutdown gets delayed. Many times you just wait in front of your computer for it to either startup or shut down. This is irritating at times. But at the same time, during a shutdown, it is necessary for your computer to properly close all the programs and processes just to make your next startup better.
Identify Windows Services that delay Shutdown
Some Windows Services might be causing delays in shutdowns while running in the background. If they delay startup, it results in Boot degradation.
To find these delaying Services we might have to use the Event Viewer. To open Event Viewer, right click on the Start Button and click on Event Viewer.
Now, navigate to the following section inside of the Event Viewer,
Applications And Services Logs\Microsoft\Windows\Diagnostics-Performance\Operational
On the left panel, right click on the Operational log and then select Filter Current Log.
In the field labeled as enter 203.
Now click on OK. This will open a new section where only the Events triggered during the shutdown are shown.
Now, if you look closely through the list, you will find events saying “This service caused a delay in the system shutdown process.”
In the field for Friendly Name and File Name, you will find the offending service.
Identify Windows Services that delay startup
Similarly, to identify and locate Services that are delaying Windows startup, you need to search for Event ID 103. It will list the Services that result in Boot Degradation experience.
You can then log on to the web to learn more about that Service and then can check if that is safe to be Disabled, delay the loading of specific Services or have it stopped.
“Automatic” vs “Automatic (Delayed start)”
When installing Windows services there are two options for automatically starting a Windows service on Windows startup. One is Automatic, and the other is Automatic (Delayed start). What is the difference between these two in detail?
For example, if you’re creating the installer with wixtoolset, the ServiceConfig element has the DelayedAutoStart attribute. How will that effect what happens when services are started at boot time?
1 Answer 1
In short, services set to Automatic will start during the boot process, while services set to start as Delayed will start shortly after boot.
Starting your service Delayed improves the boot performance of your server and has security benefits which are outlined in the article Adriano linked to in the comments.
Update: «shortly after boot» is actually 2 minutes after the last «automatic» service has started, by default. This can be configured by a registry key, according to Windows Internals and other sources (3,4).
The registry keys of interest (At least in some versions of windows) are:
- HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\ \DelayedAutostart will have the value 1 if delayed, 0 if not.
- HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\AutoStartDelay or HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\AutoStartDelay (on Windows 10): decimal number of seconds to wait, may need to create this one. Applies globally to all Delayed services.
Windows service delay time
This forum has migrated to Microsoft Q&A. Visit Microsoft Q&A to post new questions.
Answered by:
Question
I am trying to increase the delay for some of my services on a Windows Server 2012 Standard Edition system. I have changed the services from «Autostart» to «Autostart (Delayed)» and now see that my services are starting after the other AutoStart services. It is hard to accurately time the delay, but it seems to agree with the documentation that 120 seconds after the last autostart service starts.
However, I would like to start some services after a service has collected data from a serial comms line, which takes 180 seconds on this large installation I am working on. I have read about a registry setting HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\AutoStartDelay which is described as doing what I would like it to do, however my attempts to set the delay to 600 seconds instead of 120 seems not to make any difference to the delay time. I have tried creating the AutoStartDelay entry as both a REG_SZ and a REG_DWORD as the Internet opinion seems divided on this issue. I use 600 as a test, I would like to use a more reasonable 240 in practise.
Has any one had experience of using this facility in Windows Server 2012? (Not R2!)
How to set Delay time for Startup programs in Windows 10
Unnecessary startup programs, usually cause Windows to boot slower, and hence many decide to disable unwanted startup programs. There several good freeware like WinPatrol, CCleaner, MSConfig Cleanup Tool, Malwarebytes StartUpLITE, Autoruns, Startup Sentinel, etc, that can help you disable or remove your startup programs easily, thereby making Windows start faster.
Apart from simply disabling or removing them, you can, if you wish, you can also delay the running of such startup programs using software like WinPatrol, Windows Startup Helper, or Startup delayer. Then again, these freeware can help you, not just to delay the start-up of programs, but also set the time of delay. This means you can configure Windows in such a way, that these programs start only after the lapse of a particular period of time.
Set Delay time for Startup programs
Let us check out these 3 free tools that can let you time the delay for startup programs in Windows 10.
1] WinPatrol
WinPatrol is a great free software to have installed on your Windows computer, as it keeps a watch on it, as well as lets you make changes to it quickly. You can use WinPatrol for setting the time delays too. Under the Startup Programs tab, select the program startup which you wish to delay and right-click on it and select Move to delayed start program list. Now select the Delayed Start tab and select this program. Clicking on Delay Options, you will be offered various Delay startup options.
You can set it to start after several minutes or seconds from the drop-down menu. WinPatrol also offers additional options which you can decide on.
2] Windows Startup Helper
Startup Helper is another program made to help ease the load during Windows startup, by allowing users to select the order, startup delay, and the time between each program startup. It will let you set the order and the delay time for your startup programs, so that they start only after the set time, after your PC boots.
To use it, click on Add new item, and use the Program Path button to browse to the executable. Next, you can set the Delay times.
3] Startup Delayer
Startup Delayer Standard Edition is free. You can use it to start some programs on a priority basis. You can also use it to delay programs, as well as set the time of delay.
During installation, this tool may download and install Visual Studio C++ Runtime automatically on your Windows computer as the program requires it.
4] LaunchLater
LaunchLater allows you to defer the launch of applications that run at Windows login. This lets Windows focus on booting itself first, then subsequently running a list of configured startup apps using a schedule that you control.
These tools run on all the recent versions of Windows, including Windows 10/8.1 Let us know if you know of any more such free tools.
Date: September 22, 2018 Tags: Freeware, Startups
