A common topic of discussion in the Windows world - in fact, in any operating system - is boot performance. Many systems take a long time to reach a usable desktop from the moment the power switch is pressed, and this can be quite annoying if it takes too long. In a post on the Engineering 7 blog, Michael Fortin, lead engineer of Microsoft's Fundamentals/Core Operating System Group, explains what Microsoft is doing to make Windows 7 boot faster.
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Member since:2006-01-10
Ha, it's funny that my Mac boots almost in the time where Windows wakes up from hibernation ...
You're right, hibernation is pretty fast to boot up, but it's not always an alternative. There are scenarios where you have to REALLY shut down your computer, or reboot, for example when you installed new software. It's just awkward when you have to wait minutes for a reboot.
Member since:2006-01-08
Member since:2006-01-19
Member since:2006-01-25
Member since:2005-12-15
Everything should be faster and more streamlined. If there's one thing that irritates me about computers it's sitting there waiting for the PC to boot when I just want to look up something quick.
It's a mental thing I know, but the PC seems to boot slower when you have less time to wait.
My hope is one day PCs can get all the hardware initialisation done (the bit before the OS) as quick as consoles do. I'd settle for a long initial scan which is saved each boot up can be excused from 10 seconds of checks. Sure it'd be my responsibility to run another scan if my hardware changes, but that happens far less often that does booting my PC.
Member since:2006-06-03
Member since:2005-08-19
What you said about the fans staying on during sleep would indicate the sleep mode being used is S1, not S3. Checking the BIOS may yield an option for you. Unfortunately, some BIOS's do not provide such an option. There's also the frustrating possibility that some components in your PC aren't compatible with S3 sleep. I deeply dislike it when that happens...
The fancy new "green" features on hardware (i.e. hybrid SLI) is all well and good, but I'd rather hardware manufacturers cracked down on the driver teams to make the drivers compatible with existing stuff like sleep/hibernate. There's so much wasted potential in energy savings (not to mention energy bills, which will change consumer minds quickly). Many PCs are kept always-on simply because sleep modes have so many compatiblity problems.
Member since:
2005-07-06
So what ? One of my machines - which also serves as a multimedia pc - has Windows on it, is always shut down into hibernation, and it "boots" up below 20 seconds. I don't need faster than that, better get those people working on features that matter.