[schemescape]

What should I be using instead?

I don’t mind cmd.exe and it launches instantly (same reason I frequently use notepad.exe for quick edits). That latter quality is very hard to find :)

Edit: but if you meant for scripting, yeah, batch files are terrible.

[switch007]

On my Windows 10 with no profile it takes 1-2 seconds (Ryzen 3600/M2/32GB RM). Like, what is it doing? I get annoyed if bash on Linux takes like 250ms.

[schemescape]

Opening cmd.exe or PowerShell (or something else)?

[switch007]

PowerShell

[hiccuphippo]

Personally I use the bash that comes with git for Windows. I only need to use cmd.exe for creating symlinks since mklink is a built-in.