Not to defend Windows too much in a Linux community, but you can turn on verbose status messages for the screens you see during startup, shutdown, login and log off. It’s a setting that can either be turned on with the local or domain group policy, or by registry key.
Still though, it’s not as detailed as full console output, but is definitely more helpful than just telling you to wait.
In group policy (local or domain):
Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Display highly detailed status messages
Also make sure that this policy is not set or set to disabled:
Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Remove Boot / Shutdown / Logon / Logoff status messages
Instead of using local group policy you could use the registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
“VerboseStatus”=dword:00000001
If you do it through registry, make sure this key is either non-existant or set to 0.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
“DisableStatusMessages”
If you use Windows a lot, get used to the group policy editor. Your computer should have the local group policy editor on it. If you’ve never used it before, you’ll be surprised at how configurable Windows can be if you know where to look. They just don’t really give those options to the everyday user.