Submitted by One of the reasons Windows 7 runs faster (faster start up, resume, shut down, less churn during user sessions) is due to the re-engineering of how Windows maintains and activates services running in the background. Microsoft’s Channel 9 has an interesting video with a Windows kernel developer whose team designed a new trigger-based service controller that enables service developers to mark services as needing to run only when certain conditions are met. This means Windows 7 can more intelligently manage when to make resources avaiable for services that employ this trigger pattern for starting and stopping. Less code that runs at any given time means Windows 7 has more resources available for foreground processes that impact users interacting with the OS. The net effect of this for users is a snappier OS.
MS is still stealing from the best
[1] http://upstart.ubuntu.com/
Really? Sounds a lot like Solaris SMF first released with Solaris 10 on January 31, 2005… 20 months before Upstart was released (August 24, 2006).
Great! And when does Solaris start properly supporting SATA RAID controlers?
Mine is not supported and I cannot set an IDE emulation mode on BIOS, as requested by Solaris.
Something that Windows XP, Vista and 7, Linux and FreeBSD don’t have any problem with.
dude, linux has been behind the curve for a very long time when it comes to boot process
nice reaction time though. first post on a windows story is about linux.
Edited 2009-01-27 01:19 UTC
Apple released launchd with Mac OS 10.4 Tiger in 2005, which was also a lot before upstart.
So no Linux isn’t the forerunner of this technology. Linux distros didn’t even bother to just use launchd, they had to create their own tool. Which may be because of GPL incompatibilities with the Apache License of launchd.
resource management and allocation is something that none of the current OS’s *(desktop OS’s that is) really do stellar with. OSX 10.6 hopefully will improve on this front as well. I am glad to see that MS is digging deep down to make sure this release is of good quality.
*the term “desktop OS” was thrown in there as QNX is, for teh most part, an exception my previous statement.
“resource management and allocation is something that none of the current OS’s *(desktop OS’s that is) really do stellar with. OSX 10.6 hopefully will improve on this front as well.”
Mac OS X has been doing great on this regard with technologies like launchd since Tiger.
I don`t think so. I have 10.5.6 and Windows 7 beta installed (via Bootcamp) on my 20″ Intel iMac. Windows has more raw power, apps launch faster, After Effects renders faster, heck, even iTunes run faster on Windows 7. OSX doesn`t suffer from the ubiquitous Windows hiccups – it runs slower, but steady.
This probably means that Windows 7 is fatter than it really needs to be. When I’m running Ubuntu, I only have the exact services I need. If I disabled any at any time, my computer would stop running properly, with only one exception (CUPS).
This probably means that Windows 7 is always running more than it really needs, except when CPU use is 100% 🙂
are you kidding? ubuntu has tons of services enabled like all others user friendly distros, for example I remember that there is a service for hp printers, what If I don’t have an hp printer or a printer at all? that’s why I usually prefer to install debian, and even there you get exim installed by default, I guess because it’s a “at” dependency
I’m talking about after I turn off things like Tracker, Bluetooth, Apport, Avahi etc. After I disable the stuff that I don’t need, then there’s pretty much nothing else that I can disable even for a little while without hampering my ability to use my computer! The only exception is CUPS – I guess that could be turned on and off as needed, but every other service that I leave running is something that needs to be running or the machine won’t work properly.
So how is this any different from Windows after you have disabled all the services you don’t need?
I do like Windows and I’m an enthusiastic beta tester but I’m very dissatisfied with its performance. I mean it still boots in more than 60 seconds on my C2D computer with 4GB RAM. My notebook is an x60s with 2GB RAM and 7 boots in almost 2 minutes (i counted in the fully loaded desktop and running apps). What are your experiences?
and? cpu & ram amount dont tell us much. What type of boot drives and their specs? how about your controller? is win7 using specific drivers or failsafe generics? there are a lot of other factors other than cpu speed and the amount of ram you have, people dont seem to get this. my ancient dual p3-600 boots xp in about 50 seconds, but I’m using a fast scsi drive and controller
Edited 2009-01-27 13:14 UTC
it’s a Hitachi 320GB/16MB SATA-II drive connected to an Intel DG33TL mobo. I think it should be fast.
Haven’t timed it, but on my Shuttle Glamor G31 boot times are on par with Mac OS X on my aluminum iMac.
So far I have found Windows 7 to be a pleasure to use. Seriously. Huge improvement over XP (to me anyway). Never tried Vista.
Totally off topic and the wrong place to ask but… my “Windows score” is totally dragged down by my disk I/O, which baffles me a bit, since it is a SATA II connection to a 250 GB drive with 16 MB cache…
This a driver issue/BIOS issue?
[edit]
4 GB RAM, Core 2 Quad 2.4 GHz
Edited 2009-01-28 00:09 UTC
26 seconds from post to a fully loaded desktop for me on an hp pavilion dv7 (fingerprint reader probably cuts down a bit on the login time though ;-))
Inspiron 1525 with 2GB RAM and Bitlocker enabled. Boots in 37 seconds from the BIOS to the Desktop, though I am still typing my rather lengthy password.
The 64 bit version, inside VMware Fusion Version 2.0.1 (128865), boots from start to desktop (auto login, no password) in 55 secs aprox.
VM configured as Widows 2008 64bits, 1GB ram, bridged network.
Vista takes a little bit more tho’, but my Vista install has Visual Studio 2008 installed. This windows 7 has nothing installed, only network configured.
It feels faster, and some minor changes are welcomed. It’s gonna be a good windows compared to XP and Vista, provided you have updated hardware and need Windows, that is.
My Hardware is: Mac Pro with two Quad Xeon 2.8, 10GB ram. Vista VM was running with 2gb assigned at the time of the test (tho mostly idle), plus a horde of other Mac applications. Yet 5 gb of ram were free at the time of the test. Will test this night with a “fresh reboot”.
Edited 2009-01-27 16:53 UTC
//My Hardware is: Mac Pro with two Quad Xeon 2.8, 10GB ram.//
Good grief that had better run any OS at light-speed. You paid enough for it to do so.
LOL, Yeah it does work fast. Like I have Vista (2GB) (with visual studio 2008), Windows 7 for testing, and all the OS X app you can imagine (mail, transmision, pixelmator, itunes, ical, things, safari, dict, adium, etc…) plus World of Warcraft and I barely notice it. I just switch between spaces. But don’t tell anyone about the World of Warcraft
Studio really shouldn’t have an effect on boot (other then possibly fragmenting the disc)
I am officially jealous of your rig. And that is saying something, because I have a better machine (and more of them) then anyone else I know
Oh C’mon, jealosy is not good. It took me a lot of time and dedication to earn it. I used to work on a Pbook, later a Macbook pro (1st gen) with 1.5GB and Parallels 1. Imagine the difference when I jumped to this rig.
It is probably more expensive than a regular self-made PC, I paid like 2600Eur for this machine (plus 200U$s in RAM, OWC), but I’m really happy with OS X and the performance here. I’m surrounded by Windows PCs and Linuxes around here but none is as pleasant to use as this one (for me).
🙂 Thanks.
2 minutes 20 secs to 30 secs to the desktop fully loaded, run in VirtualBox 1.4.1 on a Macbook 2ghz, with 1gb of ram assigned to the Win7 virtual machine.
A stripped down version of XP takes 1 min 5 sec with autologin. Its not really a fair comparision though, since not all the defaults are there.
…of this of course won’t come until…
…which of course means re-engineering applications and services.
But of course because we are reading about it in the general media we can be certain that Microsoft themselves will utilise their new technology in all of the services and applications that ship with Windows 7
Guaranteed
Don’t be so sure; Windows 7 has Direct2D and DirectWrite, and yet the widget kits/common controls (aka, the icons, windows, drop down menu’s etc. etc) included with Windows still use GDI+/GDI to draw them; due to them not porting GDI+/GDI to run ontop of Direct2D/DirectWrite, GDI/GDI+ will remain unaccelerated.
There are many more examples of software developed by Microsoft and them not using new features added to Windows. Another example would be the lack of use in regards to WPF, the fact that each application uses a different widget kit resulting in a different look and feel. Compare Notepad to Wordpad to Calculator; watch the inconsistencies and issues arise when applying theme’s (from Microsoft’s own website).
Microsoft is like a chronic hoarder; they just don’t know when to say no; they hoard crap from 20 years ago in their operating system, and worse, they still use that crap. I can understand having it hanging around for compatibility sake but there should be no reason at all for any component in the operating system to actually be using it.
Edited 2009-01-27 21:03 UTC
“Don’t be so sure; Windows 7 has Direct2D and DirectWrite, and yet the widget kits/common controls (aka, the icons, windows, drop down menu’s etc. etc) included with Windows still use GDI+/GDI to draw them; due to them not porting GDI+/GDI to run ontop of Direct2D/DirectWrite, GDI/GDI+ will remain unaccelerated.”
keep in mind this is still Beta software. all in good time (though likely not final release, think SP1). but I know it was part of teh original final release build on the TODO.
That would be interesting to see if it did occur given that I posed the very question to the engineer on his Microsoft blog; he stated that it wasn’t on the cards. I’d love to be proven wrong, but given Microsoft’s reputation for not using their own dog food, I’m not going to hold my breath.
SP1? I doubt it – very rarely does Microsoft add features to their service packs unless they really-really-really need to, in the case of Windows XP SP2.
There aren’t really any on 7
Actually that’s true. If anything, the Windows7 “theme” appears to be way more integrated. Still couldn’t find the old Windows 3.1 “font” thing. Apparently, after more than 15 years, they got it removed
))