Many people have had issues where their Welcome screen has been displayed for 30 seconds, delaying the desktop, when using a solid color background. Microsoft has released a fix for this issue, which should get rid of this problem.

Consider the following scenario:

You have a computer that is running windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2.

You set a solid color as the desktop background.

The Desktop Window Manager Session Manager service is running.

You log on to the computer locally.

In this scenario, the Welcome screen is displayed for 30 seconds during the logon process.

Download fix: Hotfix 977346

There are also a couple workarounds.

First, use a picture as a desktop background, even a simple one will work such as a solid color.

The second workaround requires a registry edit.

1. Click Start, type regedit and press enter to enter the Registry Editor.

2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesSystem

3. Double click the DelayedDesktopSwitchTimeout entry.

4. In the Value Data box, type 5.

5. Click OK, and exit the Registry Editor.

That’s all there is to it.