Windows 8 has some features to make it boot extremely fast, and can use the new UEFI BIOS and SSD’s to make it even much faster. Perhaps too fast for some of us that need to boot into some diagnostics (BIOS, Safe Mode, etc). Microsoft has needed to design some solution to fixing this “problem” of a super fast booting machine. I wonder if this is what is considered a “First World Problem”. A 7 second boot on a desktop OS and we’re still complaining?!
If the entire length of boot passes in just seven seconds, the individual portions that comprise the boot sequence go by almost too quickly to notice (much less, interrupt). Most of the decisions about what will happen in boot are over in the first 2-3 seconds – after that, booting is just about getting to Windows as quickly as possible. These 2-3 seconds include the time allowed for firmware initialization and POST (< 2 seconds), and the time allowed for the Windows boot manager to detect an alternate boot path (< 200 milliseconds on some systems). These times will continue to shrink, and even now they no longer allow enough time to interrupt boot as you could in the past.