System Configuration (MSConfig)

A controlled clean boot can prove whether a non-Microsoft service or startup app is involved without turning permanent service changes into the diagnosis.

List Windows service objects and their current status; specific service names can be queried and required/dependent services can also be inspected.

Separate boot delay, sign-in delay and post-desktop startup load, then correlate recent changes and startup items before broad service changes.

Use the named service and complete error text to determine whether the failure is timeout, configuration, binary, permission or another service-specific cause.

A higher-level service can fail because one of its required services failed first; trace the dependency chain instead of repairing only the visible service.

Read recent Service Control Manager events efficiently from the System log so service-start/dependency/crash timing can be correlated.