The startup problem is caused by a change in the Windows operating system and is affecting a bunch of software. There was already some slow code in a Microsoft library that handles scaling of images in the tool bar and this new Windows bug makes it much much worse. But thanks to some clever people out there on the internet somewhere, I fixed the slowdown by bypassing the buggy code.

If you have the Linkage software and it take a minute two to start up and show the tool bar, get the latest version to fix it.

Links for download are here: https://blog.rectorsquid.com/linkage-mechanism-designer-and-simulator/