Fascinating: one worthwhile way to speed up your Windows PC’s boot time, according to Jeff Atwood (whose advice I usually find worthwhile), is to disable any antivirus software. Unless you (a) are incredibly secure in your network’s ability to detect and thwart malware and spyware, (b) are 100% secure that there aren’t any undiscovered vulnerabilities in Windows — and in the software you run on your Windows machine — that would allow code to run without your explicit permission, I’d say that that’s pretty solidly some bad advice there.