Systems integrator provider affini has launched a new software tool designed to reduce the amount of time spent starting or restarting a computer.

BootHawk, which measures and displays the startup processes on Windows desktops, is supposed to reduced boot up times from one and a quarter hours to four minutes.

The UK-based company said it developed the software in response to requests from CIOs for a new kind of product that would measure the startup processes and explain the causes of any delays.

Shane Colombo, Director of Projects at affini, said: "Over time, enterprise IT systems can get bogged down by layer upon layer of scripts including group policies; application deployment policies; login scripts and user profiles. Each script adds anything from a few milliseconds to several minutes to the startup time. When you multiply this by a few hundred processes, boot up periods become noticeably drawn out and employees start wandering off to make a coffee instead of starting work."

Affini said BootHawk uses less than one per cent of central processing unit (CPU) and measures forty seven events during the Windows boot up process.

The tool can be used in any sector that operates large, distributed, complex Microsoft Windows environments.