Windows 8.1 Pro x64 UEFI very slow boot and shutdown

PDTScully,

That did a great job at increasing the boot time!  I think it might be booting faster; 5 to 6 seconds!! Thank you!!

The shutdown process is still really slow.  The fix for that will take some time.  Since Microsoft has been just giving out the same advice.  I can assume they do not know what is wrong and that it is probably something to do with a process hanging; a driver I bet.  My next move will be to see if there is any software that can log the shutdown process and the time it takes to store or remove resources.

I made the 2 changes as you had suggested (# of proc's & max memory), but just making those 2 changes did not have an impact for me. Guessing it probably is a combination of all the other changes along with this one that made the difference.

As I mentioned previously, I am running W8 (not pro) and had good startup but shutdown was 4 to 5 minutes.  Today did a "refresh" and have reinstalled all my programs.  Startup is still 10-15 seconds but shutdown has gone down to also about 10-15 seconds.  Pain to do the reinstall but well worth it to get the problem fixed.

I am using Pro and it is very slow compared to just Windows 8.  I just build this system a few months ago and I was enjoying it being bug free.  I put in a i7 4770k processor, Gigabyte ud5h z87 motherboard, 16 gigs of RAM, 240 Gig SSD, and a GeForce GTX 670 graphics card*;* it booted in 15 secs.  Since using the 8.1 update, my system takes +4 minutes to boot and about 5 minutes to shutdown.  Arrrg! I have updated all the drivers, I have re-flashed the bios, I tried a new user account and nothing works!! On top of this I have been trying to figure out why I have a memory leak!!! If I didn't have to reconfigure all my photography software I would rebuild the hard drive again and just stay with Windows 8.  Luckily, I only set one computer to 8.1 the others will stay at 8.0. 

Hey Microsoft!!! Fix this!! Or else I am switching my whole company to Apple the next time we need to upgrade!

I have had windows 8.1 64bit Pro installed since the day it was officially released... and yes prior to that windows 8 was booting up in about 5 seconds on my SSD, but like everyone else 8.1 was taking about 30 seconds to boot...

I know everyone has been saying it was the it was because Microsoft removed the Window Experience Index... but I have tried all the recommended tweaks to fix boot time... none of them worked...

However, I noticed something, that no one has mention before "Advanced options"

After running msconfig a few dozen time to bring up the System Configuration screen, under the Boot tab, I noticed Advanced options button**.** I clicked it, and a new BOOT Advanced Options screen appeared. 

I have chosen Number of processors as 4 (maximum allowed), and also Maximum memory.

I have the same system as KenMcCarron has above... and for the past 2 days, I have been booting up in about 5-6 seconds with 8.1

I am not saying this is the solution to the boot time... it could be one of the many tweaks I had already tried... but my boot time only improved after I did the above...

I just need some to verify if this is the solution...

I ended up doing a scratch & reload using Windows 8.1 Pro ISO, and did not see the fast boot up I had been seeing previously with Windows 8.0 Pro. It's not bad (i.e. 17 seconds from Windows logo to login screen), however it is not as fast as it was before (i.e. 5 seconds from Windows logo to login screen).

One thing I did observe was, that if I did the Shutdown from the login screen, and then turned my PC back on, the boot time to the login screen was back to what Windows 8.0 Pro did before (i.e. 5 seconds from Windows logo to login screen). However, if I did the shutdown after logging into the system, the timing to the login screen was back to around 17 seconds.