Windows 7 May Not Be Much Faster Than Vista

What you are realizing now is that 7 just isn't seeing more services but new features. You also have to look at what you have installed on both there too. IF you have a different software environment by seeing more loaded onto 7 then Vista that will have a direct effect.

Here I will be making comparisons with both RCs each on their own set up as stand alone installations as well as Vista HP 32 on a third drive seeing more installed on both 7s then Vista while Vista still appears slower. The delay seen here when shutting Vista down is due primarily to one item left to identify taking longer to close out there.

7 overall in the long run will be a bit faster while any version of Windows can start seeing slow down after a lengthy period of time from various programs being installed and later removed leaving items behind in the registry. You also start seeing a large collection of temp install and unstall folders at some point requiring the slight increase in access time when going to browse through various folders on the drive.

The primary item that will make the most difference is the refinement of the kernel over Vista there. Once you pile a ton of items on top then things tend to see the typical slowdown. With Vista that was things like the new Aero themes, side bar, and gadgets that saw the most blame there.

You know right off that each new version will be seeing something new. That could be anything from themes to security features or simply how memory is allocated. The move from XP's PreFetch to Vista's SuperFetch process of seeing the most commonly used programs preloaded in a standby in Vista is one example of that.

Another thing people may not know about is a bug that slipped past screening when the RCs were made public last week. "Microsoft patches huge Windows 7 RC bug" Microsoft patches huge Windows 7 RC bug

The fix was released on the 7th when MS released that the internal testers apparently missed something and is now available at the update site if you have the automatic updates turned off. Things like this show that the RCs themselves are not the finished product while Vista has been now for over 2yrs. already having seen it's own SP2 plus various other updates.

Said patch affecting only English 32bit:

According to the accompanying support document, the problem affects only the English-language version of the 32-bit edition of Windows 7 RC.

That's where the update went on when I booted into the 32bit and ran the update option to find it was already on and nothing bur a Sliverlight and W.Defender item for the 64bit.

DrWho said:

Can't we safely assume, that every new OS will be larger than the old one, as MS adds features and more glitz?
I shut down about 11 to 15 services in XP and almost 40 in Vista Ultimate 64.
I'm still using the same services shutdown batch file for 7 that I used for Vista, but I'm sure I'm going to have to revamp it upwards, to take care of some new services.
And if there's ever a Windows 8, I'm sure I'll have to revise it again.
That seems to be the way of things.
And so far, I've not found any way around it, if I want to keep on running MS OS's and continue to set up new computers and maintain them.

Maybe I'll just retire for good and forget the whole mess! Maybe.....

If you think about it, almost every program ever written gets larger when you undergo major version changes - I am not talking about editing a module / routine / method to make it more efficient, that is not a major revision change.

A major revision change constitutes that addition of new features and fixing of broken things in older features. When you add new things, you tend to add code - which makes it larger.

And, FWIW, I have found that shutting down services tends to have a minute effect on the system these days, not b/c the systems have more RAM, but because the services are only used as needed, as opposed to being always on as they were in XP.

That's where the SuperFetch plays a role again in 7. If you look carefully at the volume of fragmentation of a drive if you regularly saw a high volume on XP in short period of time from creating new, moving, copying, deleting files all the time and then look on the drive or partition where Vista or 7 is installed the fragmentation is 0%!

How come? Just like your most often used programs the two newer versions will preload things into ram in a low profile instead of the wait for programs startups and the need to schedule maintainence on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. That tends to use just a little more ram while keeping Windows in better shape.

The thing noticed right off with Vista and now 7 was seeing more stability. With 7 more services are set at manual even though the number has seen a slight increase for things like the preview when IE or W.E. windows are minimized by simply hovering the mouse cursor over the taskbar. That takes a few more registry entries as well.

Vista is still a good version while having missing out on people still running older hardwares by not raising the minimum requirements from the start. Now new systems see 3-4gb of memory already installed even with the 32bit Home Premium.

It's not Vista is slowwwwww.... but it what it preloads into active ram right at startup being the most used programs as well as background services plus the typical as it goes expression of "eye candy" with the then new Aero themes and sidebar, gadgets.

Besides seeing the startup repair tools beginning with Vista one thing 7 now sees besides a heavily refined Vista kernel overall is the built in option to create a system recovery disk. That can be made at any time as well as seeing the prompting for this when finishing up a backup of the drive.