Really? 45 seconds?  That seems like an eternity, especially with an SSD.  My rig boots to a working desktop in about 6-8 seconds, but then I've performed a couple of tweaks in BIOS and Windows start-up.

I seem to remember you talking about using a UEFI mobo some time ago but I'm not sure if it was you who had it or someone else.  Anyway, you can reduce that time considerably if you do in fact have UEFI and go into the boot settings to enable Quick Start. There are two settings available on mine, Standard and Express, but you need to read up in your owners manual if you're going to use Express.  Enabling Express could mean that you can only access the BIOS from an icon on the desktop because there's no menu at boot-up, just a quick flash before your desktop loads, so until you become accustomed to it all you may want to use the Standard Quick Start.

The other thing you can do is disable the Lock and Login screens.  By the time you swipe off the Lock Screen and type in your password you've wasted 8-10 seconds... more if it's a long password, so why not dispense with them both?  I did and my boot times are super quick.

As to your question GeomanNL, I expect that Windows 8 will slow some after a year or so of use, but in my experience I'd say not as much as previous editions.  That may have something to do with running it on a SSD, but I ran Win 7 on an identical SSD and I feel it had slowed more after 12 months of constant use.  Also, I believe that running any OS on a mechanical drive will slow it down more rapidly than on a SSD, which is static and does not require defragmenting, thus better maintaining file integrity.

I don't mean to be argumentative, but I'm sure that's from a hibernated state and not a full cold boot. If you disabled the hibernation, as I have, you wouldn't see that fast a boot. I have had 3 different SSDs on 3 different rigs with virgin installs with no added programs and have never seen a 5-6 second boot time, even WITH hibernation enabled.

Since I dual boot, I wouldn't want Quick Start. I do have a UEFI BIOS.

I also have hibernation disabled. Windows 8/8.1 fools people into thinking they get 10 second boots, when in actuality, it's not a true boot because with default settings, 8 and 8.1 never really shutdown, they hibernate.

I don't want my PC to hibernate. When I shut down, I want it to actually shut down.

45 seconds is very reasonable for an actual boot into a fully functional desktop, all progs loaded, net available. I get about the same boot up speed when warm booting ( rebooting from a fully functional desktop, back to a fully functioning desktop). Lock and login screens disabled.

Also, in a dual boot situation, you must remember that the boot screen can only be set to 5 seconds, no shorter. Of course, if I'm sitting there, I hit the button for 8.1 in 2 seconds, to save 3 seconds...lol.

Nope, I always hard shutdown my machine, so every turn-on is a cold boot.  I don't like hibernation as I has issues with my rig waking up when I didn't want it to, so it's disabled. 

I believe the reason you're not seeing faster boot times is that you multi-boot and do not use UEFI Quick Start.  When I press the on button I do not get the BIOS post or boot menu, just a blank bootscreen with the whirlygig for about 4-5 seconds then my desktop loading, which takes 2-3 seconds... to load desktop icons and Winstep Xtreme.

I suppose it is when you're muti-booting and have a standard startup enabled in the BIOS, but that's a choice you've made so you can access the various OSes for skinning and the like.  Me, I like it simple these days.  One OS per machine and a fast, uncomplicated bootup.  I got yrag to thank for that. There was a time when I triple booted XP, Vista, Win 7 and had 6 drives installed, but he suggested I would get more out of my machine if I got back to basics and didn't bloat it with multiple HDDs, and he was right...of course.  These days I just have my SSD and a 2Tb HDD internally.  All my other drives are now externals and are connected only as needed.  So yeah, the more drives/partitions you have, the more your BIOS has to read at boot, thus preventing a faster start.

Yup, simple and uncomplicated suits me.

Actually, a hard shutdown in Windows 8 is actually a hybrid shutdown/hibernate, Mark.

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/windows-and-office/how-windows-8-hybrid-shutdown-fast-boot-feature-works/ 

Unless you disable fast boot. 

"The goal of Fast Boot is pretty obvious from its name - Windows 8 boots up faster than previous versions of the operating system ever did. To accomplish this feat, Windows 8 doesn't totally shut down when you click the Shut down command. Instead it only partially shuts down and partially hibernates. This is the Hybrid Shutdown part of the equation. Then, when you turn on your computer, Windows 8 starts very quickly because it only has to partially boot up and partially wake up. This is the Fast Boot part of the equation. Fast Boot also gets a boost from the efficiency of today's hardware; namely UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) and multi-core processors."

Point being, you are not actually shutting down completely. 

 I have Hibernate disabled, so no, it is a cold boot.

However, my fast boot times are not Windows based but the result of Quick Start settings in the BIOS.   As I said before, my rig does not go all through the BIOS postings or menus listing drives and memory, etc, but straight to the boot screen.  That takes about 4-5 seconds.  This is where I save the time.  I further save time by disabling the lock and login screens, but that is minimal compared to the 30 - 40 seconds saved through bypassing the BIOS post.

True, having an 8 core AMD FX 9350 @ 4.0ghz and an SSD has boosted performance, but these don't really come into play until the OS has loaded. No, it is the UEFI BIOS that provides the rapid startup.  I was running a Gigabyte GA-990FXA UD5 with a Legacy BIOS up until a few weeks ago, and my boot times were similar to yours, well around 25-30 seconds, but that board sort of became obsolete and was replaced with an Asus Crosshair V Formula Z, which is a Republic of Gamers special edition with some performance enhancing features... namely an ultra-quick UEFI start up.

Mark, an antivirus program won't even load in 6 seconds.  Your wifi/net has to have a few seconds to find an IP address......get real, man.  

Have it your way. No point in going on. Go over to TechRepublic and straighten them out for me, will ya?  

Sorry again, Leo. I'm outta here. 

I dunno, Jim, I'm not talking about AV or WiFi.   I am, however, talking about a working desktop in 6-8 seconds using quick start in UEFI.. It's not impossible!

Here's a link to a forum entry on Toms Hardware refering to Win 8 UEFI boot times on Youtube being under 10 seconds

And here's a clip showing an 8 second start.  Like I said, it IS possible.

Here's another... 6 second start

If you just care for the overall boot time, however, you can draw exact numbers for your past couple of boots from the Windows Event Viewer.

Click [Windows] + [W] to jump directly to Search, type event, and select View event logs. In the Event Viewer, navigate to > Applications and Services Logs > Microsoft > Windows > Diagnostics Performance. You can now view the log file that contains all events in that category. The Event ID you are looking for is 100.

Post a screeny here for us, Mark.

I know it's possible, but not from a cold boot. You are in hybrid hibernation, even if you won't admit it.

Booting to a fully operational desktop includes A/V load time and internet connection.

The clip only proves that you can boot from hybrid hibernation in 8 seconds. It is NOT a full cold boot, Mark.

I am not going to respond here again because you won't listen or admit when you're proven wrong. It's pointless. You win.

"I am not going to respond here again because you won't listen or admit when you're proven wrong. It's pointless. You win."

Now Now Jim, Don't give up yet, I am learning some stuff here.

My brother had a computer which started up in about 6 seconds and he didn't even have an SSD ... just an overclocked AMD quadcore running at 4 GHz ... until he changed some hardware and then it took a lot longer, he was pretty frustrated about it. I don't remember the details, but I agree with starkers here: it is possible, with the right hardware and a bit of luck.

My windows computer at work also has a good hardware set-up, it also takes little time to get to the login screen, and also very little time to load the desktop after that. My boss is good with computer hardware and chose a good setup. This one has an SSD though, that helps of course.

Compare that to my computer before I had the SSD. Startup took almost 1 minute. Then the login screen. The further loading of all kinds of drivers and shit, it took another full minute before the computer became responsive again. Total load time was about 2 minutes... I was about to throw my computer out of the window, that's when I bought the SSD and now the load times are ok again.

Or maybe it was because my HDD was dying... it has more or less crashed by now, I cannot start up with my original HDD included for some reason. Or maybe my motherboard is dying or maybe the cables are crap ...

Who knows... it's a mysterious world sometimes.

Same here! I agree with me too.  In fact, I dare not argue with me because I'm always right.  That's the first rule of conversation with me.  And even when I'm wrong I refer myself to rule #1.  Works every time.

As for the bit of luck, it's not such a requirement anymore, not with UEFI enabled mobos making the task of tweaking things so much easier.... and that's where the ultra fast boot times are made possible.  When I was running a board with a Legacy BIOS, no amount of tweaking in Windows would break the 25 - 30 second barrier.  Disabling non-essential services and processes, the lock and login screens, bought a few seconds, but that was as low as I could get it until the UEFI mobo upgrade. 

That's when the ultra fast boot magic began, but somehow that snippet seems to have been lost in translation.

Feching internet... has a lot to answer for.