I'm not exactly sure what the quoted writer is complaining about; SWB not running in realtime following a bootup, or the application is not active following bootup so to provide a faster response if user demanded. The free versions of SAS and MAM do not run in realtime, and I personally have the lone "services" entry, which is for SAS to load faster, configured to manual. The only realtime detection I have is my AV. DA

Do you mean the menu ripples like water when it opens or does it build upwards in waves? What computer is it and how much memory (RAM) does it have? Perhaps you have a background program hogging your resources and slowing things down. Hold down both the Alt and CTRL (Control) keys and tap the Delete key to bring up the Task manager. The Applications tab will show what you have running and across the bottom of that menu you will see how many processes are running and your CPU usage. If the CPU usage is higher than you anticipate click the Processes tab and scroll down the list looking for what is using the CPU. This is a moving target. Mine typically uses from 6% to 100% but I know why that is and unless you are doing distributed computing yours will be much more stable than that.

he did reboot after selecting normal startup correct? he should check that the startup option for Normal Startup on the first tab is selected and make sure that the SAFEBOOT check box is UNCHECKED on the BOOT.INI tab. also you should know that Diagnostic Startup deletes System Restore Points. From an MVP "If you do NOT clear the selection for "Load System Services", the System restore points would be retained due to the fact, for one, that System Restore service would still be enabled. " If you UNCHECKED "Load System Services" in a "Selective Startup". De-selecting "Load System Services" will temporarily disable Microsoft services (such as, Networking, Plug and Play, Event Logging, and Error Reporting) as well as permanently deleting all restore points for the System Restore utility. You should not, therefore do this if you either want to retain your restore points for System Restore or if you're likely to need to use a Microsoft service to further investigate the problem you're having.) On the other hand, "Diagnostic Startup" involves a step by step monitoring of basic device drivers and services. It allows you to monitor and check each of those drivers and services. Have you tried going into services at msconfig and making sure all your normal services are still set to auto or on? Have you Tried "Last Known Good Configuration" from the F8 startup selection screen? this may be helpful Controlling the system configuration and services

lotodig- Just so you're more confident, I've re-booted my computer many times over the years using the technique I've described. Several times, for example, my cursor has frozen so I couldn't navigate to do anything, such as re-boot normally. I didn't always know why some problem was happening, but I did know that the power button re-boot would not make anything worse. Usually the only time you can have a problem is if you decide to do a re-boot/re-start of any kind in the middle of some major activity where you are making changes to the computer, such as installing updates or doing a defragmentation. However, in the other 99.9% of cases, all you're doing is cleaning out the RAM of some unexplained little problem and starting fresh.