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heres a newsflash for you, after winblows has been used for 2-3 months, it takes considerably longer than 30 seconds to start...

Here's a newsflash for you: after using Windows for many years, but not allowing everything to run in the background (Check for updates for this app, etc. as well as all spyware or such) Windows doesn't degrade in a significant way, especially if you run the defragger once a month. Unless you keep on adding opened network shares and remote system logons into the standard startup sequence, Windows isn't nearly as bad as you'd like to imply: it all comes down to understanding and preventing all the crap that people typically install from getting stuck in the startup sequence.

I finally had a reason to reinstall XP on my main system last year, but not at all for the reason you'd expect: I installed it when it was new, and the reason I had to reinstall was due to a hard drive death from old age and lightning strike (when it was younger) induced failure.

Here's a newsflash for you: after using Windows for many years, but not allowing everything to run in the background (Check for updates for this app, etc. as well as all spyware or such) Windows doesn't degrade in a significant way, especially if you run the defragger once a month

Newsflash for you: all those provisos invalidate your point for 99% of users out there. Phoenix's technology might not bring any benefit to the 1% of people that can take care of a Windows machine, but that hardly matters to them.

Windows isn't nearly as bad as you'd like to imply: it all comes down to understanding and preventing all the crap that people typically install from getting stuck in the startup sequence.

Windows (as a platform --- the OS plus its apps) is bad because it requires that kind of TLC to perform well. The normal use-case is with an inexperienced user. If a product cannot cope with "expected wear and tear", it's flawed by design.

Windows apologists complaining about "stupid users" always strikes me as entertaining. "If users weren't stupid, Windows would be great!" It's like saying "If we didn't have gravity, designing airplanes would be easy!" Bitching about reality is pointless. Users are what they are and gravity is what it is. A product can only be judged by how well it functions in the context of reality (which can be a surprisingly hard concept for people to grasp). Yeah, designing products to accommodate reality is hard, but that's why engineers get paid the big bucks, right?

Edited 2007-11-06 02:14

Do you honestly expect that Linux would fare any better if average users used it, where "average users" are the ones just as likely to install all that excess crap that they do?

The big reason Linux isn't nearly as likely to be loaded down with all those things to slow things down on bootup has absolutely nothing to do with the design and everything to do with the educational level of the user and their expectations: therefore, Linux is as flawed as Windows by design, but it's only the more typical Linux user that keeps that equally flawed design from becoming as blatant, that's all.

...but not allowing everything to run in the background (Check for updates for this app, etc. as well as all spyware or such) Windows doesn't degrade in a significant way...Unless you keep on adding opened network shares and remote system logons into the standard startup sequence, Windows isn't nearly as bad as you'd like to imply...

That is, it won't start slowing down as long as you don't, you know, actually use it?

Sure there are some things that install themselves into the startup that you shouldn't, but some stuff it's convenient to have (mapped drives, antivirus, etc) and of course the registry grows every time anything is installed, or modified, or used. I'm not saying don't be careful, but from my experience, the only people (new or experienced) that still have a fast Windows install after a few months are the people that barely ever touch it.

Can't make an omelette without breaking eggs.

Here's a newflash for you: it doesn't.
My 2 year old XP installation on my laptop takes ~30 seconds to login screen and it has had all kinds of goofy stuff installed (games, cdwriting software, vpn software etc).

"My 2 year old XP installation on my laptop takes ~30 seconds to login screen and it has had all kinds of goofy stuff installed (games, cdwriting software, vpn software etc)."

My Linux box boots in 17 seconds to login screen, but you don't hear me bragging .. oh now wait a minute

Seriously, I just ensure that the KDM rc script is started early as possible.

Who's bragging? I'm just saying it doesnt take 3 minutes (a ridiculous claim). I've never had any Windows installation that has taken that long and I really dont know what people do to screw their system up that badly.

My 2 year old XP installation on my laptop takes ~30 seconds to login screen and it has had all kinds of goofy stuff installed (games, cdwriting software, vpn software etc).

How many manual interventions did you have to perform to keep it that way? My experience with Windows is that it really requires a lot of babysitting to keep it performing well.

Pretty much none at all. I've defrag'ed it 2 times but that's pretty much it.

Edited 2007-11-07 02:38

...and the login screen is non-functional. With a disgustingly large amount of services shutdown, the removal of a tonne of 'Thinkvantage' applications, and a near blanking of startups from the startup menu and registry... my brand-new Thinkpad finally boots to a functional state in a decent time. As was, straight from IBM, it'd probably be dead on the 3 minute figure.

Whereas, from Grub -> Fluxbox, total time is under a minute.

Those goofy applications will not load until you're logged in. Undoubtibly, they will take their time doing so. Most annoyingly, almost all Windows applications (and the desktop itself) feel they must steal focus while loading: making the start menu near useless, too.

Total time for Grub -> XP (logged in) is less than a minute for me.

it really depends on how you define boot. if you're talking the time you push the power button to the time the desktop is fully loaded and ready to roll, it's often significantly longer than 30 seconds, but not typically more than 1:30. if you're talking the time it takes to display the desktop, then yes 20-30 seconds is about right.

even with clean startup and services lists, the time it takes between the desktop displaying and being usable can be substantial once Windows has been on a machine for a while.

if this setup allows someone to open up their laptop and start working on their term paper in 10-15 seconds, i'm all for it.

"if this setup allows someone to open up their laptop and start working on their term paper in 10-15 seconds, i'm all for it."

I'm all for it simply because it's another technological step forward. No one else yet has solved this particular puzzle so best of luck to Phoenix for dreaming it up and giving it a go.

It's not always best to do a thing just because you can but hardware and software are two of the few areas where I think that mind set really drives exploration and evolution forward.

Besides all that, don't we already have something like this in the form of Media Center PCs? I'm sure that if Microsoft can do instant access to video, DVD, television and music playback they can also come up with instant Office and instant web browsing.

Though, it will be nice to see this from a third party so there isn't a Microsoft-only lock-in. Here's to hoping this really takes off for Phoenix.

Agreed. From 'bell chime' to desktop on this MacBook, it takes 23seconds. IHO that is very fast, if one needs 'instant' access to something - wouldn't the best solution be something like a pda with wireless internet access? I'm assuming that it has to be loaded up very quickly because there is some information required that can't wait a few seconds.

Assuming one isn't stupid, one would have the information saved on a thumb drive - load the thumb drive or flash card into the device and voila, access to it.

From what I see, all Pheonix is trying to do is do what VMware is attempting, replace one monopoly with another monopoly - no thank you, I want choice, I want the ability to tell the OS vendor to go heave ho, and I certainly don't want my firmware vendor getting in on the action and including things in the firmware which quite frankly, shouldn't be near the damn thing in the first place.

Geez, you're quick. My FreeBSD on a ThinkPad takes around 5 seconds.

Sleep requires the machine to remain minimally powered on. Hibernate saves the "sleep" ram data to hard disk so power can be cut completely however, my experience has been that hibernate is not too be trusted on the hardware I can afford.

One solution does not fit all users and this new one may work better than current solutions for some people. Heck, I'm interested to see it's progression simply because it's not been done before. When was the BIOS extended in any major way beyond power management and supporting newer hardware?

writting an OS is far beyond my abilities so for that I congradulate you and if it was/is released for download, I'd quickly add it to my OS collection. However, comparing an ansi/ascii interface based OS to a full blown GUI like X or Windows may not be entirely accurate.

Dos with Deskview boots to a usable prompt in less than a minute on modern hardware but I'm not going to claim that this makes it better than a modern OS with complete feature set.

(I'm not knocking your work at all though. The URL is going into my bookmarks even if it was spammed out here in the news forum.)

YURP, 'TIS