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This question appeared between two computer technicians that are friends of mine.
One was saying that the user profile's size (mainly regarding desktop content) would affect boot time and even general performance.
The other said that it was irrelevant. User profile size and desktop content does not affect boot time or performance.
The specific problem was discussed when one of their clients was having boot time issues.
The 1st technician said that moving the desktop content to an "internal" folder, having only the folder shortcut on the desktop would solve the issue. It did work (boot time became acceptable), so he believes he is correct.
The 2nd technician says that moving the desktop content broke any links to files that might be slowing the system, therefore he didn't correct the real problem, but only solved the issue with the wrong solution.
So the question is: Does user profile size and desktop content affect boot time in Windows 7?
Edit: Clarification from the comments follows.
The boot time:
The boot time we considered stands between pressing the power button and the load of the google logo on IE. IE is opened by pressing the shortcut on the taskbar as soon as it loads.
The desktop and user profile:
"Desktop content" regards files stored on the desktop. "User profile size" is determined by the control panel's options to view the user profile's size.
2What two events, according to you and your two technicians, delineate the start and end of "boot time"? It seems that the three of you share an idiosyncratic definition that is not the conventional one. What, exactly, is "working", in this context? Indeed, what was the actual problem? You've not told us the real problem, not told us how you measure things, not provided any meaningful data, and yet you expect us to explain to you what is going on on your systems and how ways of addressing your real problem might or might not work. The world is not clairvoyant. – JdeBP – 2012-01-28T14:05:52.233
1Have a -1 for an outright refusal to provide details in your question when asked multiple real questions about it, then. You've outright refused to explain "working", outright refused to give the measurements used, and yet you most definitely are asking the world to clairvoyantly explain to you what's going on with your systems and why unspecified changes have unspecified effects on unspecified measurements on your machines, while idiosyncratically redefining "boot time" to include browsing the WWW. – JdeBP – 2012-01-29T17:59:03.130
What is "desktop content"? What do you mean by "user profile size"? With any normal interpretation of the terms, the question is nonsense. – kreemoweet – 2012-01-29T23:38:46.210
@kreemoweet "Desktop content" regards files stored on the desktop. "User profile size" i think stands for the size of the ´C:/Users/username/´ folder. I'll check with the technicians just in case im a bit off on what they consider "user profile", I'll talk to them tomorrow. – Fernando Silva – 2012-01-30T00:01:20.237
@kreemoweet So apparently i was wrong about the user profile. The value was determined by the control panel's options to view the user profile's size. – Fernando Silva – 2012-01-30T13:29:50.627