Figured something that had been bugging me for long. Got a couple of Win 8.1 machines in my test lab and startup scripts would take a while to launch on them. Initially I thought it must be security related or something, then I noticed that the Win 7 machines in the lab don’t have an issue. This got my checking for any Win 8.1 changes with startup scripts, and found this blog post. Turns out with Win 8.1 startup scripts are delayed for 5 mins! Good news is this setting can be turned off via a GPO – Computer Configuration\Policies\Administrative Templates\System\Group Policy\Configure Logon Script Delay.
Another thing I learnt today was regarding applying language settings via GPO preferences. By default they don’t get applied until you press the F5/F6 key to mark it as enabled.
Lastly, just as a reminder to myself – to change the default Start Menu power button from Shutdown to anything else, use this GPO setting.