Sorry not to join the praise, but 4.4.3.3 still takes about 4 Minutes for startup on my PC. AMD Athlon 3000+, 2gb RAM, 6 Harddisks (2TB combined).
Maybe I have to change my settings? PM is configured to not do anything at startup, 1024MB disk cache, 100mb reserved, empty cache on exit, 128MB memory cache. Disk cache is located on a separate drive.
Axel