Windows 7: Can Microsoft get boot time to under 15 seconds?

[Jason]

I'm not a happy Vista user... If Window's 7 doesn't deliver then I'll probably run XP as long as possible, then make the permanent switch to Linux (or maybe get a mac?) and just never look back.

When Microsoft was developing Vista, or Longhorn, as it was known way back when, company officials were fond of making promises about ways that Microsoft would improve on Windows XP with its next-generation Windows release.

With Windows 7, Microsoft’s goal seems to be to provide as few promises as possible against which the final product can and will be compared and measured. That said, over the Labor Day weekend in a post by Distinguished Engineer Michael Fortin — who leads the Fun****etals feature team in the Core Operating Systems Group — Microsoft did dangle one tangible tidbit about Windows 7. From the post:

“For Windows 7, a top goal is to significantly increase the number of systems that experience very good boot times. In the lab, a very good system is one that boots in under 15 seconds.”

The August 29 post goes on to discuss how Microsoft is aiming to reduce the number of system services in Windows 7, “as well as reduce their CPU, disk and memory demand” as part of the quest to improve overall system performance with Windows 7. Windows 7 will include more enhancements to pre-fetching, which was introduced initially as part of Windows XP, according to Fortin’s post, and more parallelism in driver initialization — two more ways Microsoft is counting on speeding up initial system boot times.

Microsoft also is working with PC makers to show them ways to improve Windows 7 system performance, as well, Fortin blogged. He wrote:

“(W)e’d like to point out there is considerable engagement with our partners underway. In scanning dozens of systems, we’ve found plenty of opportunity for improvement and have made changes. Illustrating that, please consider the following data taken from a real system. As the system arrived to us, the off-the-shelf configuration had a ~45 second boot time. Performing a clean install of Vista SP1 on the same system produced a consistent ~23 second boot time. Of course, being a clean install, there were many fewer processes, services and a slightly different set of drivers (mostly the versions were different). However, we were able to take the off-the-shelf configuration and optimize it to produce a consistent boot time of ~21 seconds, ~2 seconds faster than the clean install because some driver/BIOS changes could be made in the optimized configuration.”

The much-touted official “Engineering Windows 7″ blog has provided a lot of words about how Microsoft developers think about building an operating system and how/why certain trade-offs are made. But specifics on Windows 7 features? Sounds like Microsoft won’t be sharing anything substantial on that until it releases a broader test build of 7, which is expected around the time of the Professional Developers Conference in late October.

Source: ZDNet Blogs

[gunbo13]

So now it will boot much quicker into a bloated OS with more security holes then you can imagine.

Way to get your priorities in solid order Microsoft.

[Sakesaru]

Originally Posted by Jason

I'm not a happy Vista user... If Window's 7 doesn't deliver then I'll probably run XP as long as possible, then make the permanent switch to Linux (or maybe get a mac?) and just never look back.

I regret being a gamer sometimes, for that reason. Sometimes I think I'd be better off getting a PS3 and running Linux on the laptop, even that has a substantial number of tradeoffs though.

As far as the "promise less deliver more" thing. Meh. We'll see how that goes. There's still a lingering doubt in my mind - saying that they'll promise less, and still not deliver on 80% of those promises.

Originally Posted by gunbo13

So now it will boot much quicker into a bloated OS with more security holes then you can imagine.

Way to get your priorities in solid order Microsoft.

10 points...

[daredevil]

Originally Posted by Sakesaru

I regret being a gamer sometimes, for that reason. Sometimes I think I'd be better off getting a PS3 and running Linux on the laptop, even that has a substantial number of tradeoffs though.

As far as the "promise less deliver more" thing. Meh. We'll see how that goes. There's still a lingering doubt in my mind - saying that they'll promise less, and still not deliver on 80% of those promises.



10 points...

I pretty much agree with your statement about being a gamer. I wish the game developers would develop for Linux. I feel Linux could be a very interesting venture for me but with not being able to play games and me spending 99% of my time playing games on my PC, it'd be pointless.

[shoe3k]

I recall for Vista they spoke of implementing faster boot times but that was never brought up in reviews.

[Troglodyte]

Vista was supposed to have very fast boot times and they couldn't deliver there. I might actually believe this if they stuck with their original plan of starting from scratch with the coding when windows 7 was first announced (as Blackcomb - I kinda liked that name better too. Better than Vienna as well). But instead they're building on top of vista.

I have to agree that linux is looking better and better these days.

[ZZDMAN]

With vista's hybrid sleep feature i see no reason as to why anyone would shutdown their pc.

Waking my pc from hybrid sleep (vista ultimate x64) takes under 5 sec unless a power outage has occured

I find it amusing that they're still trying to cut boot times when they've actually bypassed the problem

[Sakesaru]

Originally Posted by ZZDMAN

With vista's hybrid sleep feature i see no reason as to why anyone would shutdown their pc.

Just took a look at that... very nice. Was always a worry of mine with XP's Sleep (in S3) - was the main reason I don't often use it.

Hope you have S3 enabled & set to be the only sleep mode in your BIOS though, S1 is a still a formidable power guzzler.

[ether.real]

Who turns off their PC...lol.....24/7 user here.

[Almost Tactf]

I do every night, I just don't like 24/7 for some reason

[ZZDMAN]

Originally Posted by Sakesaru

Just took a look at that... very nice. Was always a worry of mine with XP's Sleep (in S3) - was the main reason I don't often use it.

Hope you have S3 enabled & set to be the only sleep mode in your BIOS though, S1 is a still a formidable power guzzler.

Yup it's set to s3. Gotta love hybrid sleep

[Camride]

+1 on not caring about boot times.

I like Vista though, so what do I know!

I wonder how soon Windows 7 beta will be available?

[MrObvious]

I have a laptop and turn off my PC. But I just turn it off.

[Maniac]

*looks at power options*

Turn off display: 20 minutes
Put the Computer to sleep: Never
Turn off Hard disk: Never
Cpu Throttling disabled

Least used button on the PC: power button.

hmmm

[CybrSlydr]

Mine runs 24/7 as well. Monitor shuts off after 5 min, but that's it. Only because it's facing my bed and I hate sleeping with that bright light.

[UNIXgod]

I'm on FreeBSD most of the time. wanted to play dx10 games. I go into vista for games only. sometimes I check this forum on there. but that's about it.

[Jason]

I usually just use sleep too on my desktop (both XP & Vista)... I have a UPS so if the power goes out it doesn't matter...

On my notebook (XP) I usually just Hibernate instead of shutdown... That way it won't use any battery power or wake by accident. I only reboot it when there's some windows update that requires it.