7 faster than vista? - a tiny bit maybe

[H2SO4]

Windows 7 is faster than Vista in every department if you ask me. Plus it's way better designed too.

As a former large systems operating systems architect I would be interested to understand how you concluded that Win7 is better designed than Vista. What are your measuring criteria?

I'm not qualified to join the "better designed" debate, but I thought I'd point out one battery-related area where W7 has a massive "architectural" advantage over previous versions of Windows, and one which will only get bigger with time as more driver developers get on board.

One of the best ways to increase battery life is to maximise the percentage of time during which the laptop processor is idling or even entering a lower-power state (because it's got nothing to do). Processor interrupts are a big obstacle: every few milliseconds, a hardware interrupt wakes up the OS thread dispatcher (so it can decide which thread to run next), or a drive controller might interrupt to let the OS know that a file copy chunk is available, or another device might interrupt for reasons entirely its own, and so on.

W7 introduces a "timing sensitivity" rating to its interrupts so that driver developers can (optionally) specify just how important it is to their code that their interrupts be handled exactly at a given point in time. In other words, as a hardware device driver, do you really care whether your periodic once-every-second interrupt is handled precisely at 1.000 seconds, or is plus/minus 50ms sufficiently timely for your needs. In many scenarios the handling can be off by hundreds of ms without any downside.

The clever bit is that the OS can then "batch" the interrupt handling by doing a few of them a mite too early or too late, and thus maximising the intervals without activity when the processor(s) can idle or even enter lower power states. The more driver developers take advantage of this facility, the greater the possible battery life improvements.

 

[Skylinegtrv98]

Well I thought I would just put in my .02....Actually I just upgraded from Vista x32 Home Premium on my 2 year old laptop...Upgraded to Windows 7 Ultimate x86... Sony laptop 1.8ghz dual core with 2gb of ram...and i must say the performance increase is fairly substantial...

1. I have noticed that startup time has been reduced significantly (vista took forever to startup), when starting from either a full boot or from sleep to a time when internet is connected, and all gadgets loaded and ready to go

2. As far as the launching of programs, I have only notice a slight increase in the opening of frequently used programs ie Firefox, iTunes

3. Amount of Ram used..Under normal usage in vista i was using approximately 55-60% of my total ram. Under the same usage in windows 7 I am seeing usage in the range of 40-45%

I have been using windows 7 on my HTPC for a while, and now with it on my laptop I couldn't be happier

 

[whs]

The new GUI and other features.

Maybe we better leave it at that.

Maybe you should.

And you should have known fine well that what I mean't that the basic of tasks are faster in Windows 7 than in Vista in my opinion.

But I guess that was too good an opportunity for you to turn down to brag about your surprime intellect that no-one else here has.

QuackPot, there is really no need to become hostile. I was looking for a factual discussion but you answered in a way that gave me very little to respond to. I suggest we close this discussion and move on to another subject - in peace.

 

[AstaLaVista]

Well, far from being a PC Guru, I feel compelled to give my worthless 2 cents

I was literally against Vista since it came out, you know, horror stories, etc, etc, etc. but, at the beginning of the year I was able to make me a brand new rig and as you can see in my computer specs, it may not be the Best of the Best but it is not the lower of the specs either.

Anyways, I decided to try Vista x64 Ultimate because I have a friend that works for Microsoft and he offered me a deal I couldn't refuse. Everything I know about computers up to that point was on XP and I Had a hard time getting used to Vista (user friendliness and look & Feel).

What really put a hamper on the whole thing was the fact that it felt extremely slow compared to my old trusty XP (boot time, program compatibility, games issues, internet issues). I found the vistax64 forum and everyone was so nice that I decided to stick around and try to learn vista since it was going to be the future OS.

As soon as I heard that Win 7 was out and there was a way to get one for Free, I downloaded the RC 7100 build x64 Ultimate. Well, the only way I can say this is "Seat of the Pants" benchmarks, Win 7 is faster in every aspect of my computer use than Vista. Key word here is... "My Computer Use"

As of matter of fact, I will be going back to XP and then dual boot with Win 7 because there are some hardware that I can not use with Vista and I still need but I refuse to buy a new one just because of Vista.

Again, Bill Gates can come here to tell me himself that I am wrong and that all tests say otherwise, I Don't Really Care, and you know why? because in my mind and in my computer, Win 7 is fastest and since I am not going to be using any of other Benchmark computers in which the test were made on but MINE, I don't really care what they say... I do appreciate them doing all those tests but, it don't mean a thing for me.

Have a nice weekend

 

[zone23]

In going back and forth between Vista and 7 I would say 7 isn't that much faster. It shuts down fast and starts up faster but for me thats not faster I don't reboot that often. I will say 7 has better support for older drivers than vista. Its not like I go wow this is so much faster. Oh ya and 7 seem to install faster. My AutoCAD loads about the same in both OS's, the same for Adobe Photoshop.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi all
It's a moot point now as modern hardware has advanced significantly since the initial introduction of Vista.

I think most people (even "Vista Bigots") would probably agree that the initial release(es) were really problematical on the typical low end consumer / home equipment generally in use at the time - especially the "Disk thrashing" problem which could lock up a machine for minutes at a time.

However improvements in hardware and also in the software (Vista is at SP2 level I think) make the whole question a non-issue any more.

Typical users just browse the internet / use word / excel or listen to some music / watch TV using a TV card.

All these applications barely begin to test modern hardware -- the computer is likely to be waiting for user input 99% of the time whether you use VISTA or W7.

What you CAN definitely say is that a lot of the services etc that were loaded and started automatically in VISTA are only started "on demand" in W7 which is one reason why you can install W7 on lower end equipment than VISTA -- W7 installs quite nicely on 1GB. "Netbooks" - VISTA would have a problem with these. VISTA because of the extra services and modules loaded automatically probably will take longer to start compared with W7 - and this would be noticeable on older gear or gear with less RAM.

"Benchmarking" OS'es is a very difficult task -- it also depends highly on your hardware.

For example you could have the fastest CPU on the planet with a reasonable amount of RAM - but if you had slow / rubbish disks your computer would perform very poorly against a much "leaner" machine which had a really good and fast I/O subsystem.

Be careful when reading any sort of "performance specs" -- always note what hardware is being used and what applications are actually being tested.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[whs]

jimbo45, a very good summary of where we are today. I could not agree more.

 

[pparks1]

The other thing to keep in mind is that most people who are in awe with how fast Windows 7 "seems"...probably came from a Vista box with a few years of application loads, massive defragmentation and tons of startup applications that ground their machine to a halt.

Without a doubt, a fresh install of any OS "be it XP, Vista, or Seven" is going to run circles around the old machine...simply due to being a clean install. Give it 6 months to a year of use and it's obviously going to slow down as well.

 

[Tews]

Give it 6 months to a year of use and it's obviously going to slow down as well.

Any machine is going to slow down if you neglect basic maintainence... If the average user would adopt a maintainence policy the way they do with security, the slowdown would be negligible..

 

[pparks1]

Any machine is going to slow down if you neglect basic maintainence... If the average user would adopt a maintainence policy the way they do with security, the slowdown would be negligible..

Not true at all in my experience, I'm afraid. On my work laptop, which has Windows Vista Enterprise for work....this machine is way slower than it was the day it was given to me. And unfortunately, I'm not able to remove the software that I need to perform my job.

I've optimized the box the best I can, I've shut off anything unncessary in services, I've turned off startup things in msconfig which are unneeded at boot time, I've defragged the drive and deleted the things which I don't need to maximize free disk space, I've turned off some of the aero features like transparent windows....but regardless my boot times, my time to connect to wireless networks, and my time to shut down the box is significantly longer than they were with a clean install.

 

[Antman]

Any machine is going to slow down if you neglect basic maintainence... If the average user would adopt a maintainence policy the way they do with security, the slowdown would be negligible..

Not true at all in my experience, I'm afraid. On my work laptop, which has Windows Vista Enterprise for work....this machine is way slower than it was the day it was given to me. And unfortunately, I'm not able to remove the software that I need to perform my job.

I've optimized the box the best I can, I've shut off anything unncessary in services, I've turned off startup things in msconfig which are unneeded at boot time, I've defragged the drive and deleted the things which I don't need to maximize free disk space, I've turned off some of the aero features like transparent windows....but regardless my boot times, my time to connect to wireless networks, and my time to shut down the box is significantly longer than they were with a clean install.

You will have to provide a detailed analysis before I could accept this as anything other than wrong.

 

[gzt7d8]

I'm running Windows 7 on a 5 year old machine and I definitely find it faster than Vista. I boots up faster, it loads programs faster and in general, is more responsive than Vista.

I've placed my order for the public release version, later this month. I'm installing in on October 22nd. I'm not waiting or being swayed by writers who people think are brave in writing the real truth. They are off base as far as I'm concerned.

gs

 

[pparks1]

You will have to provide a detailed analysis before I could accept this as anything other than wrong.

What exactly would you like to see to help me prove my statements? I'd be glad to take some steps to help back up the statements that made.

I'm running on a Dell Latitude E6400, 2.33Ghz Core 2 Duo, 4GB of RAM, and 32-bit Vista Enterprise 32-bit.

I'm running some of the obvious things that were placed on this box by my company

• Trend for Antivirus
• Shoretell for integration into our phone system
• CheckPoint VPN software for remote access
• Microsoft Office 2007
• KeePass for storing passwords

Over time, I have taken on new roles and so forth and have had to load additional software packages to support my responsibilities

• VMware Server 2.0 for testing
• VMWare Converter 4.0 for converting machines
• Active Directory tools for maniging our domains
• Exchange Server management tools for 2003 and 2007 Exchange servers.
• Wireshark and WinPcap for troubleshooting network issues.
• MySQL and MSSQL client side tools for managing databases
• Apache Directory studio for managing various LDAP repositories
• VisionApp for easy RDP access into our hundreds of Windows servers
• WinSCP and Veaam FastSCP for getting files moved around to Linux
• Blackberry software and network connects to use my cell phone as modem remotely when on call.

So, at the end of the day, this machine usually churns quite a bit at startup, eats up more resources, and shuts down more slowly than it did when I first got it.

When I set this machine up to dual boot Windows 7...my windows 7 booted in about 40 seconds versus my Vista which takes over 2 minutes. To the average person who is "used" to their machine taking this long to start-up and become functional, a new Install of Windows 7 without anything else loaded would make it seem like a brand new computer and super fast. When in reality, a clean Vista install may appear almost just as fast. Over time, given the apps and so forth that people are going to load...both will naturally slow down.

Lots of people see a computer crash as the most devastating thing possible. Personally, I find it a wonderful opportunity to reload and get it cleaned back up and get it back to running as fast as possible. Unfortunately with my work computer, my downtime and lack of productivity while I got everything set back up would not be justified by my time savings in boot ups and shutdowns.

 

[Antman]

You will have to provide a detailed analysis before I could accept this as anything other than wrong.

What exactly would you like to see to help me prove my statements? I'd be glad to take some steps to help back up the statements that made.

I'm running on a Dell Latitude E6400, 2.33Ghz Core 2 Duo, 4GB of RAM, and 32-bit Vista Enterprise 32-bit.

I'm running some of the obvious things that were placed on this box by my company

• Trend for Antivirus
• Shoretell for integration into our phone system
• CheckPoint VPN software for remote access
• Microsoft Office 2007
• KeePass for storing passwords

Over time, I have taken on new roles and so forth and have had to load additional software packages to support my responsibilities

• VMware Server 2.0 for testing
• VMWare Converter 4.0 for converting machines
• Active Directory tools for maniging our domains
• Exchange Server management tools for 2003 and 2007 Exchange servers.
• Wireshark and WinPcap for troubleshooting network issues.
• MySQL and MSSQL client side tools for managing databases
• Apache Directory studio for managing various LDAP repositories
• VisionApp for easy RDP access into our hundreds of Windows servers
• WinSCP and Veaam FastSCP for getting files moved around to Linux
• Blackberry software and network connects to use my cell phone as modem remotely when on call.

So, at the end of the day, this machine usually churns quite a bit at startup, eats up more resources, and shuts down more slowly than it did when I first got it.

When I set this machine up to dual boot Windows 7...my windows 7 booted in about 40 seconds versus my Vista which takes over 2 minutes. To the average person who is "used" to their machine taking this long to start-up and become functional, a new Install of Windows 7 without anything else loaded would make it seem like a brand new computer and super fast. When in reality, a clean Vista install may appear almost just as fast. Over time, given the apps and so forth that people are going to load...both will naturally slow down.

Lots of people see a computer crash as the most devastating thing possible. Personally, I find it a wonderful opportunity to reload and get it cleaned back up and get it back to running as fast as possible. Unfortunately with my work computer, my downtime and lack of productivity while I got everything set back up would not be justified by my time savings in boot ups and shutdowns.

So, what you are actually saying - A machine that does relatively nothing boots, connects and shuts down faster than a machine that is actually in productive use?

My well maintained production machine is as responsive today as it was the day that it reached it's current install state.

 

[SquonkSC]

Reading all the posts in this thread, it proves once more how subjective computing really is.

All I've seen is subjective opinions, comparisons between an OS that has been running for yrs, and one just freshly installed.

An none of it backed up with facts, measurements or benchmarks.

The OP at least gave us a link to people who actually did a fair comparison.
Clean installs on identical hardware, that's the only way to be objective.

And then you would still have deviations caused by drivers that are in their early stages of development for W7, and drivers in their later stages for Vista.

And if it will stay the same lean machine after two years of use and being polluted with trial-ware, unremoved regkeys, etc.. remains to be seen.

Vista has become quite a decent OS, but it's too late, W7 has arrived.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there

Things like AV software will by their nature slow your machine down due to the unalterable fact that the whole Virus data base contains many more entries (new virus definitions are being added almost daily and the checking to be done has to be far more sophisticated compared with that done several years ago). Attacks against an OS are far more sophisticated these days -- who had ever heard of things like "rootkits" until relatively recently.

Probably the same with corporate email systems -- these have AV built in which will slow down the end users response time as the amount of information to be checked grows and becomes more sophisticated. Same as Logging on to VPN's etc.

The best solution would actually be to have all the AV stuff done by a firewall on a totally separate machine -- this machine could be a low end older one that's connected to your router and simply acts as a "pass thru" type of gateway.

Ideally - Here's a good one for you to earn Big Bucks -- why can't all this be done in a small Linux / Unix type of OS actually embedded in the router. We have windows CE for small palmtop devices - some type of Windows CE could run as a minimal VM inside the router to detect Windows Viruses.

When at home I have an older box acting as a SUSE sever which is connected to the internet. My W7 box is connected to the Internet via the SUSE server.

This saves having to muck about with any AV software on the windows box -- saves quite a bit of "OS degradation" in performance.

So far since running W7 RTM and adding loads of apps I haven't noticed any "Slowdown" yet.

I'm sure 99% of OS slowdown is probably due to AV software followed by bad use of disk space.


Cheers
jimbo

 

[whs]

Any machine is going to slow down if you neglect basic maintainence... If the average user would adopt a maintainence policy the way they do with security, the slowdown would be negligible..

Not true at all in my experience, I'm afraid. On my work laptop, which has Windows Vista Enterprise for work....this machine is way slower than it was the day it was given to me. And unfortunately, I'm not able to remove the software that I need to perform my job.

I've optimized the box the best I can, I've shut off anything unncessary in services, I've turned off startup things in msconfig which are unneeded at boot time, I've defragged the drive and deleted the things which I don't need to maximize free disk space, I've turned off some of the aero features like transparent windows....but regardless my boot times, my time to connect to wireless networks, and my time to shut down the box is significantly longer than they were with a clean install.

I have made the same experience for boot and shutdown times - especially since I installed 2 virtual partitions. That resulted in an imaging footprint of about 60GBs. For the execution of programs, however, I did not notice any measurable impact. The system is a Quad core with 4GBs of RAM and 32bit Vista. There are 25.335 files in my Program Files folder. I suspect that the added time is resulting from additional HDD disk operations required.
Once I have the Win7 RTM, I will test that on my other system where I will install Win7 on an SSD. I suspect that the SSD would alleviate the problem.

 

[johnwillyums]

Agreed Squonk.
I was fortunate in many ways. The first OS I ever used was XP Pro x86 on an old underpowered box someone gave to me.
After a few months with this I realised I was "into computers" and the internet.
So I blew all my money on a brand new much more powerful machine and, just by chance, plumped for Vistx64.
Even with the initial glitches and driver issues Vista x64 blew me away completely and I think it was really x64 that made the difference. Friends on x86 hated Vista
It seemed immediately faster and smoother and easier to use than XP to me.
W7 last December '08 had a similar effect but I still dual boot and, since SP2, I find very little difference between Vista and W7 in terms of speed.
That said I much prefer W7. It is quite simply the muts nuts.
As The Antman points out most of us don't really tax our machines at all but the tech addiction creeps up on you.
I'm going i7 soon and that will really be like buying a Ferrari to drive to the corner shop.

Hey ho, John

 

[whs]

Agreed Squonk.
I was fortunate in many ways. The first OS I ever used was XP Pro x86 on an old underpowered box someone gave to me.
After a few months with this I realised I was "into computers" and the internet.
So I blew all my money on a brand new much more powerful machine and, just by chance, plumped for Vistx64.
Even with the initial glitches and driver issues Vista x64 blew me away completely and I think it was really x64 that made the difference. Friends on x86 hated Vista
It seemed immediately faster and smoother and easier to use than XP to me.
W7 last December '08 had a similar effect but I still dual boot and, since SP2, I find very little difference between Vista and W7 in terms of speed.
That said I much prefer W7. It is quite simply the muts nuts.
As The Antman points out most of us don't really tax our machines at all but the tech addiction creeps up on you.
I'm going i7 soon and that will really be like buying a Ferrari to drive to the corner shop.

Hey ho, John

With your I7 you should get an SSD which would be the perfect match with Win7. Then it would be a Bugatti. It is unbelievable how fast a system will get with an SSD. In my first tests (with an OCZ Vertex), Win7 booted in 10 seconds and when you click a program, it loads faster than you can lift the finger from the mouse. Admittedly the SSDs are still a little pricey. But I think there is nothing you can do for the same money which gives you a comparable performance improvement. Just make sure you get an SSD where the firmware supports Trim (which Win7 also supports).

 

[AstaLaVista]

You will have to provide a detailed analysis before I could accept this as anything other than wrong.

Why is it so hard for some of us to accept a personal opinion or to easily disregard a statement made by someone else as wrong but comeback with a similar answer when is your turn to back it up?

My well maintained production machine is as responsive today as it was the day that it reached it's current install state.

I find this extremely funny, frustrating as well. I really couldn't care less as I have already stated in my previous post. I think that some of you need to chill out and leave life a little loose, because at the end of the day... it is a "Your Word Against Mine" sort of an argument