I’m not a big fan of seeing the whole “windows is starting, please wait” crap that Microsoft makes me view upon startup. I like to know what’s really going on. Is it initializing something? Is it hung up? Am I wearing pants?

Well, that last part I can figure out on my own easy enough. And now I can figure out the first two as well. This requires the use of the trusty regedit application. Don’t make changes unless you know what you’re doing (or trust a guy who can tell if he is or is not wearing pants).

1.) Start >> Run >> Regedit
2.) Navigate to:
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\system
3.) Add the following DWORD Key:
VerboseStatus
4.) Make sure the value of the DWORD is set to “1” (obviously no quotes)
5.) Reboot