Windows7 Boots Slower than Vista ?

Although Microsoft itself demonstrated an 11-second Windows 7 boot, with some configurations being able to go as low as a 10-second startup, one company developing PC tune-up utilities claims that Windows 7 in fact is slower than Windows Vista. According to Iolo Technlogies, a new computer running Windows 7 can take as much as 1 minute 34 seconds from a cold boot to the moment when the desktop becomes fully usable. It is Iolo that found Vista to be up and ready for use in just 1 minute and 6 seconds.
I’m not going to comment in any way as to the possibility that Iolo is simply attempting to generate some free publicity for itself and its Windows optimization products that have been compatible with Windows 7 since the operating system was in Beta. Instead, I will share with the users my own experience of running the latest iteration of the Windows client since the start of 2009.

I have been using Windows 7 as main operating system since it launched into Beta in January, and upgraded to the full RTM Ultimate edition as soon as it was offered through my MSDN subscription at the start of August. I also have been running Windows 7 on multiple machines, both at home and at work, while in parallel using test computers still running Windows Vista or even Windows XP. I’m going to leave Mac OS X and Linux out of this, and just focus on Windows.
After almost eight months of using Windows 7 on a daily basis my personal experience is that the latest iteration of the Windows client manages to leave Windows Vista in the dust without any problems. Performance is through the roof when it comes down to day-to-day usage scenarios. Well, truth be told, I haven’t performed a benchmarking of the two platforms, but it feels faster. However, it will be the impression of speed and performance that will make the difference between Windows 7 and Windows Vista, if you ask me, as the vast majority of end users will not be performing any sort of benchmarking either.
Iolo shared its results with Beyond Binary, and underlined that the benchmarking took into consideration not the time it took for the desktop to be presented to end users, but the amount of time passed between when Windows 7 started up and the moment when it reached a fully usable stage. In this regard, Iolo let Windows 7 boot until all CPU cycles dropped and an idle state was reached.
In Vista’s case, the appearance of the desktop is indeed not synonymous with a fully usable operating system. Reaching the Vista desktop was just a part of the operating system’s startup process, as the platform continued to load services in the background.
But Microsoft has optimized the Windows 7 boot process, and one of the optimizations is the fact that the operating system loads services with an on-demand mechanism, instead of piling them up by default and eating CPU cycles and I/O with no other reason than to have all applications ready, even if the user could not even run them. With the same range of applications installed as in Vista, my computer running Windows 7 is faster than when I had its precursor installed. Still, Iolo only gave a taste of their statistics, promising that there was more to come.
I included two videos below, one featuring the 10-second Windows 7 boot, and the other the Vista vs. Windows 7 startup performance drag race.

 

Windows 7 10-Second Boot

While 15 seconds was half the time it took Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) to boot, some critics pointed that the 15-second boot was a pipe dream. Well, Windows 7 did manage to provide its fair share of surprises when it comes down to boot performance, and the latest involves a startup that takes just 10 seconds. Just watch the video embedded bellow in order to get an idea of just what is involved in getting from a cold boot to a fully functional Windows 7 desktop in just 10 seconds.

“At (…) Intel Developer Forum, a company called Phoenix debuted new BIOS technology that allows Windows 7 to boot up from black screen to desktop in only 10 seconds. Called "Instant Boot BIOS," the Phoenix BIOS uses new UEFI technology to power on several system devices at once instead of one-by-one. It also runs only those processes that are necessary to hand control over from BIOS to OS,” revealed Channel 10’s Sarah Perez (initially reported by LaptopMag).
The boot speed improvements over Windows Vista became clear very early on in the development process of Windows 7, via the now famous boot drag race. Still, in combination with top of the line and innovative technology, Windows 7 truly shines. Earlier this year, Microsoft itself demonstrated a Windows 7 boot that took only 11 seconds. Curious to find out more about it, I contacted the company and found out what was the configuration of the machine they used.
Phoenix “demoed the boot up process at the conference where they showed a 20-second boot on a retrofitted Dell Adamo as well as a 10-second boot on a Lenovo T400 with an SSD drive. The company’s Chief Scientist Steve Jones also produced a report from performance logging tool Microsoft Velocity that showed how the BIOS only took 1.37 seconds to hand over control to the OS. He said that future optimizations on netbooks could even lower that time,” Perez added.

source: news.softpedia.com

Computer Makers Aim to Banish Boot-Up Blues

In the time it takes your computer to boot up, you can probably make some toast or a cup of tea before the thing is ready to use. In the near future, you might only have enough time to take a sip of that tea or check your watch.

Mindful of how frustrating the wait is, makers of PCs’ basic input/output systems (BIOS) are working on bringing instant-on computing closer to reality with promises of significantly faster boot time.

“People want PCs to be like their toaster. Push a button and it is ready,” says Steve Jones, vice-president and chief scientist of core systems at Phoenix Technologies, one of the biggest BIOS makers.