Replying to the list in this manner--having to retype the subject--is unusual to me, and I hope it does not create problems for the list. Please help me on how to reply within the mail archive to make more efficient. Many thanks to those who have replied on the topic!
Thank you, Aditya--
I had run C:\context\tex\setuptex.bat and then tried
C:\context>context firstfile.tex
which worked (now down to 3+ secs from 11+ at first run--file = \starttext Hello World \stoptext)
I think I can get this setuptex.bat automated for random context runs but,
for some reason(s) C:>context somefile.tex will not work globally on my personal computer (Lenovo x100e) over which I have admin control (maybe I am not a good admin?) and I have added C:\context\tex\texmf-mswin\bin to my PATH
I still get "Lua script not registered" complaint when I try to compile outside of C:\context directory
I suppose I could live with keeping all binaries and docs in C:\context, but that is not so inviting compared to being able to pdfLaTeX a doc over Dropbox via MikTeX for example.
--John