Is it a problem if we set the Software Protection Service to Automatic instead of of Automatic (Delayed Start)?
With the delayed start our Windows 7 systems would take close to ten minutes to boot to the desktop. If we set it to automatic it's under 2 minutes.
Automatic (Delayed Start) means that the service should be started with low priority after the initial startup. Seems you have a service or startup-application that depends on the Software Protection, and it delays the boot to desktop while waiting for Software Protection.
There is no issue with setting it to Automatic, though for normal system it means that it will spend time on loading this service before showing the desktop.