This is it. This is the fix. I tried everything else people suggested and nothing worked until this.
My last system clock sync was way back in September - it had fallen about 2 minutes behind.
THANK YOU!!!
Everyone needs to try this.
Go into your date/time menu in Windows and sync now (i toggled Set Time Automatically off and back on as well, just to reset it, not sure if thats required)
My startup time went from 20 minutes of Activating Packages to 1.5-2 minutes from launch to menus. It feels almost instant. Amazing work