Windows 7 boots slower than Vista, says study.

[stew2]

I do find 7 to be slower than vista but not by much. Heres a link to my reboot time with vista and my reboot time with 7.

Its only slightly slower so im not bothered, although for me 7 is slower at booting up and some other tasks compared to vista so im hoping that when a service pack arrives it sorts a few problems out.

 

[Lebon14]

My RC is faster than my Vista... but NOT by a lot.
I'll take the startup test again and I'm going to clarify these things once and for all.

 

[Lebon14]

OK, ok. both test are done.
Here is my MSCONFIG Startup & Services that are activated on boot :

Services :
- All Microsoft (except Windows Defender)
- NOD32 related
- nVidia
- Steam
- nVidia Stereostopic 3D Driver (Vista only)
- TuneUP Extension du thème (Vista Only)

Startup apps
- HD Audio Control Panel
- nVidia Driver Windows 7 (Win7 only)
- NOD32
- Samsung PanelMgr (Printer)
- AIM

Both OS has the same otherwise indicated.

Result :
Win7 RC (a reboot after a couple of days without being shut down ) :

Windows Vista (rebooted a couple of minutes after initial booting) :

Windows 7 RC (rebooted a couple of seconds after initial booting) :

The hard drive that both are booting on is a 2005 200GB Maxtor hard drive. 7200RPM.

I'll leave the comments to you.

 

[Wii Master 64]

for those of you looking for the CNET bench-markings, they're found in the Windows 7 review (which is posted in a different thread).

 

[bobtran]

I would have to say that the original statement is debatable and from one source only that I can see. "Not shooting the messenger".

As far a I can tell Win7 seems to boot a bit faster than my Vista did although as someone else opined Win7 was slow at first and then the start-up got faster (due to caching I assume) , I wonder how many times the writer of the article actually tested the start-up.

Not sure if its faster that XP as I have done a number of upgrades since I ran XP on this machine and find myself dis-inclined to alter my configuration just to test it.

What it really comes down to is "I don't really care if it is a little faster or slower" as, in my opinion, the look and feel of Win7 is definitely superior to Vista over all as well as a "Properly Tuned" feel to it in use.

 

[QuackPot]

Windows 7 is faster than what Vista was for me when booting up and shutting down.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
Do you really re-boot your machine that much to even care.

Note of course if you have devices attached such as USB drives / scanners / printers / TV cards when you boot the system *might* take longer.

Another issue is the speed of the boot disk itself - a rubbishy slow disk can make even the FASTEST CPU feel as if its running as slow as molasseses.

Other factors are - do you have a paging file on the boot drive (i.e the same drive as the OS. In this context a different PARTITION even counts as "the same drive"). You should put paging files on DIFFERENT PHYSICAL drives to the OS if you have a number of HDD's.

Service and applications that start up on boot will play a role as will the "defragmentation" or otherwise of the HDD the OS is booted from.

However the experience of the OP is in general totally different to the vast majority of people running W7. His benchmark may be true - could be all sorts of special circumstances but I certainly wouldn't take it as Gospel that Vista boots quicker than VISTA in most circumstances ( my experience is that it boots around the same or maybe just a tad faster than XP and definitely faster than VISTA) -- I can't prove it definitely but "empiracally" W7 definitely boots quicker than VISTA and I've tried this on around a dozen totally different machines with a highly varying hardware mix.

I've even got W7 running on an old Pentium IV laptop -- this used to take several minutes at a time to load VISTA - HDD used to thrash like crazy for around 3 mins locking everything up.

I installed W7 (x-86) on the laptop - boots in seconds (or certainly under a minute).

XP boots nice and fast - as well but I'm comparing here a well tuned XP system with SP3 with a recently installed W7 system where I've done almost no tweaking except mess around with the paging files. Even in this case its a close call between XP and W7 but VISTA was definitely the slowest at boot.

To me the boot process ends when you can actually type something into the machine -- my VISTA experience was that the machine DID boot in a reasonable time but because of the HDD being totally busy for often minutes the machine was unuseable for this time.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Tews]

+1 Jimbo..

I find this whole business of X boots faster than Y silly in the extreme... Almost as silly as WEI .. It really means nothing, and is useful only for Epeening...

 

[Night Hawk]

Each person will end up with a different take for various reasons. First we are all for the most running different systems with different hardwares as well as having differing software environments added to that.

From repeat installations on different drives here from the beta to the RC the final comparison here will be seen once the retail 7 is on the exact same hardwares on a daily basis running the same programs where the final notes can be taken.

So far however 7 has been staying right on top having run both XP and Vista at the same time with 7 until those were removed on separate occasions. It's not any scientific test but has been convincing.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi tews
agree.

I'm also a member of a Professional Digital Photography Forum -- I do some free lance photography as well as I.T and we get the same silly arguments as well over the number of MP (mega pixels) a camera has -- also largely irrelevant for all sorts of reasons which you don't want to read about on a Windows Forum.

We call these guys "Pixel Peepers" - so it shows every Forum has these types of "measurebators".

Cheers
jimbo

 

[MrMephitis]

Hi there
Do you really re-boot your machine that much to even care.


jimbo

Nope, and to be truthful as long as it boots in a reasonable time I don't care how long it takes, as one of the other crucial things I do when I turn on my PC is put the kettle on to make a cup of coffee.

 

[Tews]

Nope, and to be truthful as long as it boots in a reasonable time I don't care how long it takes, as one of the other crucial things I do when I turn on my PC is put the kettle on to make a cup of coffee.

+1 .. its Morning Thunder for me!!

 

[Romulinx2]

I use sleep mode. Takes 2 seconds

 

[Night Hawk]

The thing that will make a difference for the most part for me is when you need to restart the system more then once while in the middle of something like a clean install and getting things on all over again in a relatively shorter period of time. Most of the time once turned on it stays on right through until turned off.

 

[chev65]

Not much difference in boot times but the installation time is just so much faster with Window 7, no comparison at all to XP or Vista. That little factoid alone makes Windows 7 worth having.

 

[Night Hawk]

You got that correct! Some here report seeing a full clean install in only 12 minutes. I still haven't out how they got the time down that far while the average is about 20min. compared to the older versions going back to 98 even taking 39-42min. on average there.

An upgrade repair install once everything was on took about 80min. on the system here when looking into that for the RCs when those were first out back in May. Once the retail Ultimate goes on after next week I'll be able to make some definite comparisons on the finished 7's actual time compared to the changes seen since the RC will still be running for some time on the second OS drive here.

 

[sup3rsprt]

the older versions going back to 98 even taking 39-42min. on average there.

yes but hardware was much much slower in 98

These days, installing older versions of Windows should fly by. At least they do for me.

 

[fakeasdf]

You got that correct! Some here report seeing a full clean install in only 12 minutes. I still haven't out how they got the time down that far while the average is about 20min. compared to the older versions going back to 98 even taking 39-42min. on average there.

An upgrade repair install once everything was on took about 80min. on the system here when looking into that for the RCs when those were first out back in May. Once the retail Ultimate goes on after next week I'll be able to make some definite comparisons on the finished 7's actual time compared to the changes seen since the RC will still be running for some time on the second OS drive here.

My install on my desktop was 12 minutes to desktop. Using a flash drive makes all the difference.

On to the topic, wtf is that guy booting that takes a 2:34? Maybe his software (weather bug) is having some sort of issue with Windows 7 and adversely affecting his numbers. Secondly study shows, and other similar bs, doesn't mean jack squat without real data to back it up. All he claimed was it's slower! Some idiot writer took the chance to get an article written without statistical information to back up his claims!

My name is Zooloo I claim Windows 7 boots faster than Vista, I will release more details Monday. This is according to my standard of when I feel the computer has booted. blah, get bent

 

[Night Hawk]

The one thing without 98 being tried on the present system quite yet is the time factor seen when you have both XP and Vista alike on as well as 7. Surprizingly even on an older system when dual booting 98 with XP they both took about the same amount of time for a clean install there.

 

[Lunarpancake]

+1 Jimbo..

I find this whole business of X boots faster than Y silly in the extreme... Almost as silly as WEI .. It really means nothing, and is useful only for Epeening...

-1 Jimbo and Tews...

The only reason I own computers is to pit them against each other and hold illegal basement-gambling sessions where we bet on boot times and which machine boots fastest.














.....if you couldn't tell I agree with you. Boot time is not as important as snappyness and responsiveness while actually using the OS