During start up or log on, once in a while, you'll see a message just saying Please wait. To turn this message into a more useful message, you can enable verbose messages through a policy setting (local or GP):

Either through gpedit.msc, or, if you're in a domain, through a GPO, navigate to Computer Configuration → Administrative Templates → System. Look for the setting Display highly detailed status messages and set it to Enabled. Reboot to apply the change.