I don't really care as much about the boot time as the time between my desktop showing up and any of my commands being recognized. On my old Thinkpad as soon as the desktop and Start menubar showed up I got the same two laggy warnings about incompatible drivers every single time I would boot, and for 20 seconds or so icons wouldn't even respond to me hovering over them. Then I would have to wait another 20-45 seconds for anything to open while all the little icons and their respective programs were loading in the bottom right part, among with other background activity.
Granted the computer was a couple years older than average users' these days, but psychologically it was just infuriating to think the computer is ready for me, and then having to sit through the "second boot." Instead of a super-fast boot they should focus on a super-simple boot which isn't torture to watch. I can walk away from my machine and do something else for a minute while it's booting, just like anyone does when they're popping popcorn. But the popcorn should be easy to open once it's "done."
Its not the OS's fault that you've littered your machine with all sorts of startup checkers and startup apps. Then again, most end users arent aware of this.
Is the state of software engineering so poor that no one has considered staggered or delayed startup for some of these borderline useless apps? I mean, startup is a busy time in the computer world and on the server end of things we use delayed services all the time, but on the dekstop the assholes at Apple and Google and the rest just assume that their little startup app should run immediately and with full priority and so what if you have 5 others just like this. Heaven forbid someone consider the end user experience here.
I think MS had to step in and set these things to low priority starting with Vista. What a mess when the OS guys are fixing what the app guys are simply unable or unwilling to do.
You made an incorrect assumption. I hadn't littered my computer with anything. I'm talking about bullshit apps which came with the computer. Apps such as (I'll read these off for you) a control panel for my Radeon video card, the same for my fan (which was unbelievably loud), Windows update, Java update, sometimes Microsoft Office update, an icon which informs me if there is a shock currently being detected (never) and if the hard drive is running (always), Bluetooth devices (I had never used one with the computer), Windows Security alerts, Windows sidebar (a genius non-creation from Microsoft), the safely-remove-hardware interface, and an unwanted volume mixer which I never touched once.
This is Vista I'm talking about, perhaps half the fault is mine for not updating to 7. And a clean reinstall might have ridden the computer of a few of these, but only a few. Also, I left out Adobe update because it's completely 3rd party but in light of your second paragraph, I agree. That shit got annoying fast.
And yes, the point I'm making and that others have reinforced is that the OS shouldn't pretend to be done booting up when it's clearly not. These things are part of the OS.
The OS could show a visual indication that it is still running "startup" stuff, which are effectively a part of the boot process. Then you could return once that visual indication is gone, and know that your computer has completed the boot.
Currently, the OS simply doesn't tell you when it's actually finished booting.
That's likely all the installed stuff you have accumulated over time with components set to run at startup - not the OS itself. Think programs like iTunes, Flash, Skype, Java, to name just a few common things people install which is guilty of this (annoyingly even Microsoft's own programs like Messenger can contribute to the problem too). All of them do stuff at startup, be it checking for updates or kicking off background services.
Have a look at Autoruns[1], which is a great SysInternals tool to show you what is set to run at startup, and lets you selectively disable them.
I hear you, but I have to say it's mostly stuff that Lenovo packed into the box for me. There was a little bit of the 3rd party programs; Adobe; Skype; but mostly not. See my reply here http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2978973
This made me wonder if they have addressed the main issue behind scenarios like that, which, in my experience, is the application of GPOs. I haven't actually had a win7 machine on a domain so I don't know, but I sure do have similar memories of "applying security policy" taking forever in XP.
I usually get coffee instead of staring at the laptop.
But I wonder how big a difference a smarter disk-elevator algorithm would make.
Or something that logged file-accesses, made a list of disk-block-no of that, sorted the list, and early at next boot read of blocks from that list. This is to avoid boot-time being spent waiting for random disk-accesses.
Using an SSD on Windows 7 has all but removed the post-login lag for me. For me, that's been the real saving - fast bootup is nice, but then being able to use the system straight away is ace :)
typing msconfig in the search box and goign to the startup tab will allow you to disable most programs that automatically startup at boot. Just leave essentials such as software for laptop mouse or sound, and you should be gold. Soluto is also a pretty good program to help you with the process, but you don't really need that one.
On my X220 the Windows 7 boot is already fast even without a SSD (pre-desktop authentication and some Lenovo sauce helps) but watching the video FTA - that's mind bogglingly fast - it's more like the Mac's sleep/resume than a cold boot!
The key change seems to be a clever kernel session hibernation. They discard user sessions as those involve writing a lot of data (full hibernation) but save kernel session which can be written out and read back fairly quickly. Then there is multicore enabled resume - doesn't help with disk io but with decompression of hibernated data.
Multicore does nothing for raw io rate, but they're using compression, and the claim seems to be that they can use higher compression levels and still be faster than an SSD (so that decompression throughput won't be a bottleneck).
If hibernation didn't use compression, there was no need for CPU involvement due to DMA. Since there would be no CPU involvement, being multi-core enabled wouldn't be of help.
That's actually pretty slick. Not sure if other operating systems do something similar already. I know my Macs "sleep" rather than hibernate and are nearly ready immediately upon hitting the power button or flipping the lid open. While that isn't the same as what Microsoft is doing here it is a pretty clever way to achieve faster boot times.
Microsoft does have some intelligent people working there. It's such a bummer it can't get some real work done outside of Office and Windows. I'd say their games unit is pretty solid too but everything else seems to be a real hit or miss scenario.
More precisely they do both. Close the lid and they save RAM to disk, then sleep. Open the lid and they resume instantly from sleep and discard the hibernation content, but wait long enough to drain the battery (or pop off the battery e.g for a swap on older Macs) and they will resume from disk.
IIRC Win 7 knows how to do that, though it might not be default.
Except you can bet on getting about 24 hours of sleep time on a Windows machine (my HP laptop lasted a little over 24 hours on a full charge) compared to the ~4 weeks of standby you get on a MacBook.
This is completely dependent on the hardware and how well the OEM (in your case, Apple) optimized it. My Thinkpad used to get 2 weeks on standby (nowadays it just wakes up and hibernates after a while).
As others have noted this is perhaps more a hardware issue than software, but it does highlight the real advantage at the core of apple's business; a tight synergy of hardware and software.
Seen elsewhere with improved battery life of the iPhone vs android phones, for example.
To be fair, the people working on the Windows Phone 7 OS seem to be competent as well. (Although you may have lumped those people in the Windows category)
Oh sorry, I didn't even really consider that part of the deal. Call it a habit I guess for being so unhappy with their mobile division.
That said, Windows Phone 7 is much more interesting to me than Android. Honestly, if I had the choice between Android and a WP7 device, I'd pick the WP7 device. I am a Mac guy so it makes the most sense to be on the iPhone. But if things change I am quite glad that Microsoft rethought their mobile strategy.
My only hope is that they don't get bypassed by other consumers so much that they can't maintain keeping the OS moving forward. I truly honestly believe that WP7 is a better choice than Android in the long run.
From what I've seen it is a really interesting experience. I've seen enough videos to see how it functions from a user standpoint and I have to say it is a really unique way of thinking things. I see features on it that I wish the iPhone had.
So while I dismissed the mobile unit from my original comment, I should ammend it to state that I really do like the way the mobile unit in Microsoft is going.
I have a feeling the reason more folks shut their whole computer down in windows is because sleep / resume is "untrustworthy". I've tried using sleep/resume over multiple windows laptops , and half the time it either didn't turn the display on, or worse, the wifi wouldn't enable which caused me to reboot anyways.
I haven't had the same problems since I switched to mac, aside from occasionally having the screen not come up immediately. This lets me run many things and not feel fearful about it all getting lost when I resume.
* that said, I did watch a non-techie guy always shut down his imac when he didn't use it, seemed awkward to me but eh.
"Of course, there are times where you may want to perform a complete shutdown – for example, if you’re opening the system to add or change some hardware. We have an option in the UI to revert back to the Windows 7 shutdown/cold boot behavior, or since that’s likely a fairly infrequent thing, you can use the new /full switch on shutdown.exe. From a cmd prompt, run: shutdown /s /full / t 0 to invoke an immediate full shutdown. Also, choosing Restart from the UI will do a full shutdown, followed by a cold boot."
I was wondering how this would impact multi-boot systems, as mixing hibernation and multi-boot is an extremely bad idea (unless you know what you're doing, and even then there a
are so many ways to shoot yourself in the foot).
I will buy Windows 8 for these improved boot/hibernation times alone. It's painful to watch my computer wake up from hibernation in 15 to 30 seconds. (That's with SSD)
And what if I turn off my computer with Windows 8 and add/remove/swap PCI cards? HDDs? It will crash when booting and corrupt my data, isn't it?
In Windows 95 I had two options: reboot and poweroff.
In Windows 2000 I had three options: reboot, poweroff and sleep.
In Windows XP/Vista I have four options: reboot, poweroff, sleep and hibernate.
Finally, in Windows 8 I will have five options: reboot, poweroff-which-is-not-really-a-poweroff, poweroff-which-is-really-a-poweroff, sleep, sleep-and-then-hibernate-if-battery-is-low.
True Microsoft Way. It remembers me funny examples from Alan Cooper book 'The Inmates Are Running the Asylum'.
I'm sorry but i have to call you out here; i would be suprised if MS hasn't thought of this in some way; whether detecting changes and initating a more complete boot or dealing with it in the GUI.. but even if it required you to select a 'full' shutdown/boot, i would say it was completely worth it for a 7s boot time.
Further, i find your imagination regarding the practical handling of these power states rather lacking. The way i see it there will simply be 'reboot', 'power off' (which hibernates the kernel as described in the article, reloading it where checks show necessary), and 'standby' (which also writes ram to disk allowing resuming from hibernate with power loss -- i would imagine this could be turned off with a setting). So, contrary to your rant, i am going to bet that there will be one less standard option. But i guess things were better in the w95 days?.
> whether detecting changes and initating a more complete boot or dealing with it in the GUI.
Sure, they can detect hw changes and make full cold boot, therefore losing all RAM data which was saved to the disk at the point of hibernation. (It would be like a quick dirty reset.) Or they can restore that data back to RAM and crash the kernel instantly. In either case, RAM contents are lost.
So each time I turn off the PC, I have to plan ahead, "do I want to use poweroff-type-I or poweroff-type-II option?" If I won't guess right, then I lose my data.
This new 'power off' isn't meant to be a full hibernate. It only stores the kernel-related RAM, not your data. So you would only lose your kernel data, which would be reloaded in the 'full' boot. Full hibernate is still a separate entity (or at least, a part of standby as i'd predict).
This is not a change from now; if you hibernate and then change your hardware, yes, you will lose data.
Still there could be some edge cases - like hibernating filesystem cache as a part of kernel-related RAM , then shutting down, booting Linux, changing the filesystem and then booting windows (which does not know that filesystem pages were changed from outside and working with obsolete copy from cache).
This one is a non-issue actually, because Linux ntfs-3g driver deletes hiberfil.sys when mounting NTFS partition in R/W mode, but there could be other edge cases like this one.
Of course in the real world you'll need to add anti-virus, anti-rootkit, anti-spyware, keyboard scrambler and personal firewall to windows so you need to add about 5-10 seconds to their sterile boot times.
Of these five I only have the firewall enabled on my Windows 7 desktop. And that only because I can’t be bothered to look into some issues with interdependencies when you disable the Windows firewall. (Can’t recall what exactly now.)
I don’t think the firewall adds anything significant to the startup time; it is just one of the dozens of services that start automatically.
Then, for many people an antivirus program may also be useful. Would that add 5 to 10 seconds to the startup time of a modern machine?
For the other 3—anti-rootkit, anti-spyware, keyboard scrambler— why do you think they are necessary for every user of Windows?
> I don’t think the firewall adds anything significant to the startup time
Think how long iptables takes to load, plus installing a couple of system hooks to detect unknown programs and a GUI window to warn about them. This stuff only takes a long time to load if you're loading in a huge framework and JIT at startup - startup times are very quick for C++ programs using Win32 API calls or WTL.
I'd say anti-virus and anti-spyware are mostly treated as one these days (anti-malware) - with things like Microsoft Security Essentials, Norton Internet Security, etc. I use MSE and it sure as hell doesn't add 5 seconds to startup. It doesn't even add 1. But perhaps it's because I'm running a 'post-modern' machine with an SSD...
My bootup times in Win7 with just MSE are crazy fast, especially on my machines with SSDs. This kind of 1990s MS bashing "LOLZ YOU NEED 4 AVs TO GET BY" isn't constructive to the conversation and below HN's otherwise excellent comment quality.
At least 10 seconds, although in fairness I've used Windows since 3.0 without any of the above and have yet to experience a problem because of it. It's just not a suitable configuration for the average user.
Now they just have to enforce a rule on OEMs that every windows 8 PC must meet requirements that allow it not only to work, but actually make it work well. Especially in regards to ram requirements.
Very much alive in the European Union still. If you just lost billions of dollars in legal entanglements, I doubt you're going to do it again. No matter how valuable it might be to customers.
Which OSes were these? XP, Vista, 7 is too small a sample size to see a pattern. 95 and NT were too different platforms entirely that weren't merged until XP.
And until XP they had a nasty habit of not doing updates on the consumer OS. ie. 95 and 95B, 98 and 98SE.
Another great point hidden in there is the sleep+hibernate feature in which when sleeping, if power is lost the system's state is not. You would simply boot from hybernation from the sleep point.
This one of rarest stories about Microsoft on HN. It is easy to forget about Microsoft all together. Good to notice Win8 could really add up to the previous versions.
Plus, they publish their videos in the MP4 format so you don't have to install Silverlight crapware first (or are even unable to watch it at all if you're not on Windows).
Did you look at the article? Microsoft has data that says roughly 50% of people shutdown their PCs. So clearly, a lot of people do care about fast booting
Yes but that's just an education issue. You don't need to shut them down all the time. Perhaps they should make the whole shutdown/sleep/hibernate thing more intuitive.
Standby modes still use electricity that drains battery life and draws unnecessary power from the grid. It may be faster for the user, but it's not necessarily better for them.
Also, I haven't used Windows laptops in a while, but the Sleep mode on XP was really terrible - if I selected Start -> Shutdown and then closed the lid, when I came back and opened the lid I would find Windows resuming the shutdown procedure due to automatic sleep mode.
Fast boot times are very important because there are lots of people who do need to turn their machines off. Maybe Microsoft have fixed various usability problems, but the electricity ones still stand.
Why have running electronics that you're not using?
Doesn't turning machine off and on each time shorten life of various its components? That way, a user would need to buy a new one sooner, which is definitely not better for them and the environment. I'd agree with grandparent in that most people normally do not need to turn their machines off completely and are better using sleep mode / hibernate, and this is the thing that needs optimization in the first place.
The only thing that could be argued to have its life shortened to an extent that was relevant is the HDD. And this is powered off with any of sleep/ hibernate/ power off.
That looks like an insanely fast boot, under 10 seconds, must've been an SSD. Hope Windows 8 leads HDD manufacturers to make Hybrid hard drives, say a 3TB disk with 16GB SSD embedded inside. The OS can decide what files to keep on there based on usage (boot files and frequently used programs are an obvious choice).
That's pretty neat. Most Lion users I know have been complaining about poor boot times. My own machine takes 45-50 seconds to boot. I don't have a SSD, but in the Leopard days it used to boot from this same hard disk in about 20 seconds.
Lion has also cut battery life in half for a minority of users, and my own machine refused to go to sleep until -- get this -- I turned off Internet Sharing in the Sharing preferences.
Machine off, cold start to login screen: 6.7s
At desktop clicking restart to login screen: 5.9s.
Wake from sleep to login screen: 3.2s
Lift lid to login screen: 2.8s.
Same numbers here on my macbook pro. Another important stat is that when our laptops wake up, we re-establish wifi connections in ~100 ms, compared to the average of 10 seconds on PCs.
Asking for a citation is fair but he did say average and most folks on HN do not use average computers. My guess is that you have an above average machine.
Maybe, but apple only make 'premium' laptops (especially since killing the macbook), not comparable to an 'average' (read: a few years old, fairly budget) laptop.
The video is showing beyond the login screen with the laptop ready to use. So you need to measure from the login screen to desktop and add that to the 6.7s. Or set up autologin(if that can be done).
Fast boot no longer matters. Fast sleep/wakeup is important. I love that ipad-like instant possible usage of my macbook air. I open it and it is just there.
Your homework is to go to the office of a company of more than 10,000 employees at the start of the work day, turn on your computer along with everybody else, and sit there doing nothing until you manage to pull up a browser and hit a web site of your choice and can actually manipulate it.
My father's laptop, larded with the corporate, err, "value add software", once took five minutes to pass that gauntlet, without even any local network activity. You do want to make sure you can pull open the browser and do a bit of real work, though; the desktop appeared in about a minute, but you couldn't actually do anything. With the Maverick release of Ubuntu, the same test could be passed in 45 seconds. (Still not what I'd call speedy, I just include that for reference. Yes, it's a laptop and the hard drive hurts, but the hardware wasn't that bad. Also, this was XP, which I know from experience on that hardware should have taken roughly 45 seconds too.)
You might understand why it's a bit of a sore point with many people whose wallets Microsoft is listening to after that experience.
(It appeared to me, based on the process list and the way the machine was performing, that the simultaneous presence of backup software trying to scan every file access and virus scanning software trying to scan every file access, and for all I know trying to each perform other real scans of the disk, was causing major disk thrash, which combined with the fact the virus scanner insisted on scanning various files before the OS could execute them caused major, major slowdown. I'd never put up with this on my machine, but somehow I suspect this is not an uncommon case in the corporate world...)
Tt takes 10 minutes for my Lenovo L412 to boot and come to a 'working condition'. There is a reason we don't turn off the laptops. However, given the dismal battery life of 2 hours sometimes we are forced to, and it's not a pleasant experience to boot.
Right, that start up time is not Windows starting, its the bullshit software. Meaning that even if Windows 8 boots a bit faster, that same bloatware is still going to make it slow...
That and the slow booting BIOS. In a legacy PC, there is very little need for most of what the BIOS does, and that firmware code is usually not well-optimized by the OEMs... I wonder what's taking EFI so long.
Crappy implementations from Apple? Sorry, I've been scorned several times and I'm frankly not impressed with the effort exerted to make their EFI impl decent (largely because I think they don't want it to be as robust as it could be).
Thanks for the downvotes. You all must have an EFI that boots installation media reliably, or have one that has a proper BIOS emulation with usb support, or have one that has support for graphics switching when not in OS X, or have one that doesn't require an HFS+ partition with "bless"ings.
Not so much for desktops, but for laptops it's nice. I coldboot my laptop a couple times a day. I'm running Ubuntu 11.04 with an SSD and it takes about 8 seconds after autologon.
Boot/sleep/hibernate performance will be one of the features that makes or breaks Windows 8. It's all about the tablets and laptops. A laptop and - more importantly - a tablet needs instant on/off like an iPad or a smartphone. That means ultra low power consumption during sleep and fast task resumption when I turn it on.
My HTC phone actually does have a Hibernate option and a quick-boot, which is similar to this Windows 8 method of hibernating kernel and driver code causing cold boots to be extremely quick.
No. The right response is to have two modes: on or off. A user shouldn't have to understand the difference between blank screen, sleep, hibernate and shut down. The iPad can do it, smartphones can do it. A user just wants to turn it 'off' when not in use and only very occasionally should have to turn it /off/ off.
If you read the article, most users don't like sleep mode (which is what iPads and smartphones do). When they start up, they want a clean boot. I'm one of those people, I shut off my computer every night and have it auto-start on a timer in the morning.
Sure, I read the article and I get that, but those are user expectations based on existing Windows PC behavior. In a 'post-PC' world, computer devices don't behave like that. Users will come to expect instant 'on' and only one possible 'off' state once they realize that their $300 Android tablet can get to their email instantly, yet their super fast expensive laptop can't.
That is his point. Most people don't want to know about "sleep", "hibernate", "standby" etc. The device should not need to bother the user with that choice.
The device doesn't really bother the user with that choice. All the user needs to do is close the laptop's lid or hit the power button and the device would go to sleep (by default). Every time a shutdown happens it means the user's going out of the way to make that choice.
Don't conflate notebook and desktop PCs here though. Most notebooks seem to have little trouble with sleep/hibernate but I've never owned a desktop PC where the fucking ACPI worked like it is supposed to. As a result I always turn off sleep and hibernate and avoid the frustration.
You shouldn't have to turn it off because atleast on Windows 7 - by default it will go to sleep after certain inactivity. And then wake up after a few hours and go to hibernate. Since hibernate is 0 power state, it is as good as turn off. Additionally, you don't lose any of your in-memory data.
>>> Qualitatively, people say they prefer to shut down because they want to have their PC completely “off” so that it uses no power – either to preserve battery life or to reduce their energy use. Hibernate is also a good option for this since it similarly has no power draw, and many people really like it. However, it’s clearly not for everyone, since one of the other things we’ve heard is that many people want to turn their PCs on and have it be a “fresh start” rather than running all of the stuff from their previous session.
Really so? It is not that people want to "start fresh", it is because the boot times from hibernate have been pathetic.
Now I am on a MacBook and I never almost shutdown, just sleep. Yes sleep consumes power, but what I mean is that I would not want to "start fresh" each time. No way.
How many people here want to "fresh start" at each boot?
I completely agree with needing a fresh start. I do not know why others would need it on Windows. But I do that so that the PC lags a little less. Windows, I feel from daily use, gets slower the more you keep it open.
I do not use Windows in recent times, either Ubuntu or Mac. But still want to see a better Windows 8 so I can use that too.
>For Windows? I only restart because I need a fresh start.
And that is why in the article they state that the "RESTART" option will still give you a "fresh start". It is only when you "turn off" the computer when you get this kernel hibernation mode.
Granted the computer was a couple years older than average users' these days, but psychologically it was just infuriating to think the computer is ready for me, and then having to sit through the "second boot." Instead of a super-fast boot they should focus on a super-simple boot which isn't torture to watch. I can walk away from my machine and do something else for a minute while it's booting, just like anyone does when they're popping popcorn. But the popcorn should be easy to open once it's "done."