Coming January, Windows 7 will make its big debut in the form of the first public beta release. However, just as with any other pre-final Windows build, it has already been leaked onto various torrent websites, and Paul Thurrot, everyone's favourite Microsoft zealot ["...hopefully Web site owners will get serious about getting ready for the next IE and correct these issues." Wait, what?], has written a review of this new beta. He concludes: "In use, Windows 7 is fairly unexceptional in the sense that, yes, it has some nice improvements over Windows Vista, but, no, none of them are particularly major changes. In this sense, Windows 7 is much like your typical Microsoft Office release, a nicely tweaked version of the previous release. (Cue the obvious Steven Sinofsky anecdote here, I guess.) That said, Windows Vista is clearly in need of a spit-shine, not to mention a public execution, and Windows 7 will provide Microsoft with a way to do both."
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Member since:2008-03-17
The reason we are told, that vista thrashes the disk is to make bootups "really fast" the next time and general maintenance. That and the plague that are systray progs...
So if windows 7 doesn't do this, it's either because you don't have any additional crap running (whether this is an achievement of windows 7 is debatable...wait till oems get their hands on it).
Or, maybe it starts lots of things in the background as they are needed.
Or, maybe just 'cos vista Sucks!
Member since:2006-02-05
Member since:2005-07-24
Well, Vista's problem is that it doesn't organize files needed at boot time in a single continuous chunk, then read that chunk directly to ram, notifying the stage 2/kernel when a resource is ready to be used.
Vista merely keeps a list of the files needed, then tries to pull them from wherever they may be as the system starts. If Windows 7 finally got smart and kept track of each file loaded at startup - and their positions and loading order, then would 'reserve' a section of the drive for boot-up, then re-order the physical data on the disk as it is to be read, they would see a decent jump.
Very little other than kernel/services/drivers needs memory during boot-up, so using max memory during this time is inconsequential. The process should start with the Stage 2 boot & kernel strap - first thing. Nothing else should have direct access to the disk except through the proper file system APIs. If something requests a file before it is loaded, it is given a higher incremental value which may - ultimately - cause re-ordering ( providing other files loaded into RAM have yet to be accessed ).
Basically just a clean little buffer with integrated defrag ( reserved allocations will prevent some file fragmentation ).
Oh well, I've decide to give OpenGL a run for its money, I just need to learn it tonight ;-)
--The loon
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Member since:
2006-02-05
The only noticeable difference I could tell between windows 7 beta and an up to date vista in terms of performance is the boot time. On the same machine, I would say that 7 is close to twice as fast, and doesn't thrash the disc for a few minutes after boot.