Windows Server takes 3 hours to boot! Applying computer settings..

 What

Windows Server takes a long time to completely boot! (> 3 hours)

 Problem

I was at the costumer site to fix problems with an exchange server, I rebooted the server.. maybe I shouldn't do this..Applying computer settings on the screen!

 Solution

When I rebooted the server I noticed after 15 minutes that the screen still shows me "Applying Computer Settings.." I opened on my computer an Remote desktop but couldn't connect to the server..

Then I tried to view the services of the server, you can do this from any Windows pc. Open your services manager:

start-> run: services.msc

Then choose connect to other computer.. and give the name or ip address from the server in the field and hit enter.

Now you will have to now the password of the administrator from the server, then once logged on you can see the services.

I noticed that the APC agent service was in state "starting". This will probably the problem, because Windows is trying over and over again to start this service.

I manually shutdown the server and started Windows In safe Mode (Hit F8 before Windows logo appears) and choose without networking. This will be faster.

I disabled the APC Agent and APC server services and rebooted the server.
Guess what.. Now it only took 10 minutes!!