id like to shake him by the hand, is he also responsible for it being usable almost the instant you get a desktop? that always annoyed me with Vista

That annoyed me with XP as well since both were in need of the improvements seen in 7! The one thing that really stands out the most in the interview there is about the new faster startup and how that came about.

The News Center: How did you increase start-up performance in Windows 7?
Dietrich:

There were a couple of key features that allowed us to get better boot times. The first was we introduced what we call the fast boot feature, which allows some parts of boot to happen in the background while Windows is discovering and initializing devices. That helped us gain up to 25 percent of our boot time over Windows Vista, depending on the hardware.

The other big one was that we significantly reduced the size of the operating system required to be read from disk in order to boot. Whereas Windows Vista required somewhere on the order of 220 to 240 megabytes of operating system code to boot, Windows 7 requires anywhere from 140 to 180 megabytes, depending on the configuration of the system.

Night Hawk said:

That annoyed me with XP as well since both were in need of the improvements seen in 7! The one thing that really stands out the most in the interview there is about the new faster startup and how that came about.

The News Center: How did you increase start-up performance in Windows 7?
Dietrich:

There were a couple of key features that allowed us to get better boot times. The first was we introduced what we call the fast boot feature, which allows some parts of boot to happen in the background while Windows is discovering and initializing devices. That helped us gain up to 25 percent of our boot time over Windows Vista, depending on the hardware.

The other big one was that we significantly reduced the size of the operating system required to be read from disk in order to boot. Whereas Windows Vista required somewhere on the order of 220 to 240 megabytes of operating system code to boot, Windows 7 requires anywhere from 140 to 180 megabytes, depending on the configuration of the system.

One thing also (and probably in the article) was the enhancement regarding removing the Vista orb at launch...

...and the bootup sound. That took a couple of seconds itself and was redundant

Zidane24 said:

Night Hawk said:

That annoyed me with XP as well since both were in need of the improvements seen in 7! The one thing that really stands out the most in the interview there is about the new faster startup and how that came about.

The News Center: How did you increase start-up performance in Windows 7?
Dietrich:

There were a couple of key features that allowed us to get better boot times. The first was we introduced what we call the fast boot feature, which allows some parts of boot to happen in the background while Windows is discovering and initializing devices. That helped us gain up to 25 percent of our boot time over Windows Vista, depending on the hardware.

The other big one was that we significantly reduced the size of the operating system required to be read from disk in order to boot. Whereas Windows Vista required somewhere on the order of 220 to 240 megabytes of operating system code to boot, Windows 7 requires anywhere from 140 to 180 megabytes, depending on the configuration of the system.

One thing also (and probably in the article) was the enhancement regarding removing the Vista orb at launch...

...and the bootup sound. That took a couple of seconds itself and was redundant

That wasn't mentioned at all in the article. But that was one thing that they probably wanted to avoid bringing up there since MS is still trying to generate Vista sales.

The entire thing with Vista was the "new look" at the time with the Start orb as part of that as well as one more item to watch at startup. That was just one more item to earn Vista the "bloated" or "getting too large" labeling.