Why Your MCP Setup Keeps Timing Out in 60 Seconds (And How I Fixed It on Windows)

I posted the FusionAL launch yesterday. Today I'm dropping the real reason it exists. Every dev hits this: add more than 8 MCP servers → Claude Desktop (or Cursor/VSCode) spins for exactly 60 seconds → red X, "timed out". Happens on every underpowered machine (my i5-7300HQ is the poster child). Tutorials ignore it. AWS/Finch articles skip Windows entirely. I documented the 6 Windows-specific failure modes nobody else solved, then built one Docker gateway that loads 150+ tools under the limit every single time. The 6 Real Killers BOM in claude_desktop_config.json — PowerShell Out-File -Encoding UTF8 adds a hidden BOM. Claude silently ignores the file. %USERPROFILE% doesn't expand — Claude Desktop does not resolve env vars in the config. docker.exe path — No inherited PATH. Must be full absolute path. Docker named pipe vs Unix socket — Windows pipe flakes; /var/run/docker.sock is reliable. Cold-start bloat — Any server downloading Chrome (Puppeteer) or heavy deps on first run blows the b