Want to see detailed messages of what Windows is doing when booting up? Here’s how to quickly enable verbose boot in Windows 11 & 10.
By default, Windows shows a simple loading animation and occasionally displays “Windows is starting” or “Updating Windows” messages when you start, shut down, log in, or log off. In reality, though it doesn’t look like much, a lot is going on in the background while Windows is booting up. For example, it has to close or open programs, start and stop services, verify system files, launch essential system programs, etc.
In most cases, a simple loading animation and a message during boot is good enough. Windows hides all this information behind a simple loading animation because it doesn’t concern users, and some might even find it distracting. That being said, if you want to see what’s happening in the background or during troubleshooting, you can enable Verbose Boot mode in Windows 11 & 10.
Once enabled, the Verbose Boot mode will force Windows to show relevant boot messages as things happen in the background. For example, if the OS is starting or stopping services, it will display appropriate messages accordingly. One of the most significant advantages of the Verbose Boot is that it makes it easy to identify which specific task makes Windows boot slower.
Thankfully, it is pretty simple to enable the verbose boot in Windows 11 and Windows 10. In this quick and easy guide, I will show you how to do it in a simple way. Let’s get started.
Before You Start
To turn on verbose boot, you must modify the registry. Before doing that, I recommend you create a full registry backup. It helps you restore your computer if something goes wrong while modifying.
Steps to Turn ON Verbose Boot in Windows 11 & 10
To enable Verbose Boot mode in Windows, we need to modify the registry. Here’s how.
- Open the Start menu.
- Search for “Registry Editor” and click “Open“.
- Go to the “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System” folder.
- Right-click the “System” folder.
- Select “New” > “DWORD (32-bit) Value“.
- Type “verbosestatus” as the name.
- Double-click the “verbosestatus” value.
- Set the “Value Data” to “1“.
- Click the “OK” button.
- Close the Registry Editor.
- Reboot your computer.
- From now on, Windows displays verbose messages when you turn on, shut down, or restart your computer.
Detailed Steps (With Screenshots)
To modify the registry, we need to open the Registry Editor first. You can either search for “Registry Editor” in the Start menu or use the “regedit” Run command (Windows key + R).
After opening the Registry Editor, go to the following folder.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
Here, see if you can find the “verbosestatus” value on the right panel. If the value is there, skip this step. Otherwise, right-click the “System” folder and select the “DWORD (32-bit) Value” option.
The above action will create a blank DWORD value on the right panel. Name the new value as “verbosestatus” and press Enter.
Next, double-click on the “verbosestatus” value, type “1” in the “Value Data” field, and click the”OK” button. This Value Data is what enables verbose mode.
Finally, close the Registry Editor and reboot Windows.
After rebooting, you will see verbose messages for every important event that occurs in the background during startup, shutdown, login, and logout. You can see an example of a verbose boot message in the image below.
That is it. It is that simple to turn on verbose boot mode in Windows 11 or 10.
Turning OFF Verbose Mode in Windows 11 or 10:
To turn off the verbose boot mode, follow the same steps as above, but set the value data to “0”. Alternatively, you can also delete the “verbosestatus” DWORD value. Don’t forget to restart your computer.
If you have any questions or need help, comment below. I’ll be happy to assist.
Good to read: How to automatically log into Windows 10
