Disabling some services and then activating them AFTER you've gotten into Windows, disabling bootup device seeking, disabling a few other junks... etc.
I manually tweak my own windows, and you can guess... my Eee PC loads in only one cycle of that loading screen. From the Windows XP load screen into desktop and ready to use, it takes about 10 seconds. You can bet that it's almost instant on the Q9450.
Thing is... Windows just has too many junks that over 80% of its users don't even know that the junks exist. By taking them out, and preserving only every day functionality (music, videos, etc...), you are guaranteed a 90% boot time boost. And actually up to 50% performance boost even if you use a bunch of antivirus softwares.
Either way, shouldn't this be software-related?