I'm wondering how come my 06 550i take a long time to start the idrive when i start my car everytime. It takes like almost 30sec to i minutes to get into the main menu. It's much slower than the E65, (sometimes i drive my dad's E65). Are they using different CPU or hardware???? :( Is there any solution i can solve it? via software update?

I was told by a sales guy at BMW that the 5 and 7 series use different operating systems and the 7er system does boot up faster. I recently had a 3er loaner, and I noticed that system booted much faster than mine. I was told the 3er operation system is also different from the 5er and 7er. He could not tell me why they used different systems in each model.

Looks like we got the Vista and they got the XP or 2000 so they boot up faster??!!

When is warm outside, mine is booting in 5-10 sec after I start the engine..when is cold...well...that's a diffrent story...takes 20 secs.

The 7er has a much older system, different OS, and no CCC. It seemed a little faster to me when I had my Hydrogen 7er but not significantly.

The 3er is the same as the 5er and 6er. Exactly the same.

It seems that iDrive knows if you are about to start the car and boots it advance. Try unlocking door in advance, such as, if car sits in the garage, before you put your coat on, go unlock or open driver's door then go get your jacket. By the time you get back iDrive may be ready.

For mine, the time varies. Most of the time it is up almost immediately after inserting the fob but sometimes it takes a little while like you mentioned 30 secs to 45 secs.