Study Finds Windows 7 isn't Faster to Boot than Vista
Posted 10/08/09 at 08:06:16 AM by Paul Lilly
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Uh oh, Windows 7 might not trump Vista across the board after all. According to PC tune-up software company Iolo Technologies, the OS of the hour takes longer to boot than Vista in most cases, no matter what you might have heard.
Iolo claims its lab unit found that a new machine installed with Windows 7 takes a minute and 34 seconds to fully load. Vista, on the other hand, takes a minute and 6 seconds, the company said. This isn't a straight boot time into Windows, says Iolo, who records how long it takes each OS to boot into a usable state where "CPU cycles are no longer significantly high and a true idle state is achieved."
Further crashing the Windows 7 party, Iolo says the situation becomes more dramatic over time. On a three-month old machine, Windows 7 took 2 minutes and 34 seconds to boot in Iolo's lab, or a minute longer than when first installed.
Dumb article...
Submitted by win7fanboi on Wed, 10/21/2009 - 7:22am
Iolo is a company that makes tune up tools.... duh! Cnet reviewers are semi-techi at best... Not to mention Win7 performance is on par with an OS that has Sevice Pack 2 out... What a waste of space Paul....
Submitted by Darth Matty on Sat, 10/17/2009 - 1:36pm
No, it doesn't retain the out-of-the-box fastness of a new PC, but I've been running RC since August and am still useable in 50 seconds. That's compared to 2:45 on the same machine by the time I gave Vista the heave. I like XP, and I've still got it running on another computer, but the resistence I hear to moving on to 7 is starting to sound as stubborn as hanging on to carburators in lieu of fuel injection. The Yahoo Answers guy sounds like he doesn't know anything about computers, or like them very much for that matter. He seems more like some ornery curmudgeon paid to work from home complaining about things. It makes sense that he'd work for a pain in the a$$ company like yahoo, with it's pain in the a$$ toolbar parasite always trying to install itself with every piece of software known to man. People like that should just get an i-Book and throw in the towel of ever having anything to say about their computer's performance ever again.
Hey, Yahoo answers isn't bad
Submitted by DBsantos77 on Sat, 10/17/2009 - 12:29am
Hey, Yahoo answers isn't bad :(
WTH is google answers? Lol
-Santos
Submitted by jreed012 on Fri, 10/16/2009 - 2:49pm
http://www.pcworld.com/article/172509/windows_7_performance_tests.html
I love Maximum PC, but I also read PC World. I'll take PC Worlds results over lolo tests any day.
Submitted by jreed012 on Fri, 10/16/2009 - 2:40pm
I looked at all the links expecting to find details on the machine....not just the hardware, but revisions of drivers, etc. Unless I'm missing it, I don't see anything detailing the machine(s) in question for both CNET and lolo (what kind of f'ed up name is that).
People need to remember, Vista was much slower when it first came out. Not just because of the pre SP1 fixes, but because of flawed release drivers, etc.
I don't buy this performance test one bit. Maybe after a few releases of drivers I will...but not at this point.
And Yahoo Answers dude, you crack me up. Whatever you're smoking, I want some.
Submitted by jimc52 on Thu, 10/15/2009 - 1:09pm
I just read your review on Windows 7 and left a holy be-jesus mess of irate tantrum. Now, you have done it! This convinces me that W7 is Microsoft's worst-ever blunder. I thought this O/S was being touted as being sleeker and more sexy as far as paired down code is concerned. It seems like we have worked backwards from XP which truly loads faster than Vista does...and now, comes W7, Microsoft's latest paltry release. Now, we are supposed to wait even longer than Vista for this thing to boot. Where did Microsoft go this time, to get it's engineering finesse? New Dehli?....I guess this goes along with the brain melt down in the U.S....Microsoft must have outsourced their brains to a tin can. What would have ever made Microsoft think for one moment, that we want slower boot times? I remember how Microsoft coyly removed one of the best and most useful utilities it ever blundered into creating...namely BOOTVIS for XP. One of their engineers was THINKING when along came the Man with the Hammer and hit the poor boy on the head with the wrench of stupidity. They said, as I remember, the utility was only designed for developers...Microsoft quickly moved to disavow any responsibility for using their BRAINS. All you have to do is use just about any current free version of Linux to find out what Windows 7 is MISSING! How can people be paying $300 for an operating system that couldn't stack up against Ubuntu if it tried? And nooooooooooo! I am not a smart a$$ing Linux user either...I use it, but I have always been a Microsoft user too...and you just cannot, not even...find one level of comparison against Linux with W7...but now...comes the hippo that wallows through the mud! I am truly dis-A-point-ed with W7 and I haven't even bought a single copy yet!
PS - I am a main contributor on Desktops and Hardware on Yahoo Answers! Believe me, I will be shouting about this to every would-be upgrader and system builder.
Submitted by ExarKun1138 on Fri, 10/16/2009 - 5:52am
Oh No! Not Yahoo Answers! Microsoft will be shaking in their collective boots now! Get a REAL Job, loser! And also, as one poster said, take the blinders off and actually USE Windows 7 before you make threats like that(yeah, some threat from a low-life troll like you). It's ID10Ts like you that give the PC world a bad name.
?
Submitted by Havok on Thu, 10/15/2009 - 4:41pm
There's a Desktop and Hardware section on Yahoo Answers? Is that like the Ask toolbar or something? :)
So both you and that Hyphensomethingsomething guy will be touting the Anti Win7 boards, got it.
CLICK.
Nice rant... now take the
Submitted by chaosdsm on Thu, 10/15/2009 - 3:17pm
Nice rant... now take the blinders off, go find your brain, & actually use Windows 7 before you decide to rant about something you obviously haven't used...
Don't just read a statement from Iolo (a company in the business of selling software to "speed up your computer") claiming slower boot times without any hard data posted to back up their claim then "go on the warpath". If this is the way you do things, I feel sorry for anyone who takes your advice at "Yahoo Answers". Fact is there are thousands of unbiased users who are actually using Windows 7 BETA or Windows 7 RC1 who have found Windows 7 to boot faster than Vista & XP on the same PC.
Don't get me wrong, I think Windows is in desperate need of a complete start over, with fresh talent & no oversite from anyone who had anything to do with current or previous versions. Computer technologies have grown by leaps & bounds in the past few years, yet our OS's (incuding Ubuntu & all it's Linux based bretheren) remain deeply rooted in the technology of the past. Until we get a fresh look at things with an OS that's not backward compatible with generations old technologies, Windows will remain the OS of default for the majority of the computing public. Between Vista & Win 7, Win 7 is as much of an improvement over Vista as XP was over Windows 98
OH SHIT! You do NOT want
Submitted by jrocknyc on Thu, 10/15/2009 - 1:27pm
OH SHIT!
You do NOT want the main contributor on Desktops and Hardware on Yahoo Answers on the warpath.
Again, can somebody please
Submitted by highsidednb on Thu, 10/15/2009 - 11:59am
Again, can somebody please tell me why this is an important benchmark? Other than fanboy peeing contest flame wars, what's the point? This story is non-news.
Submitted by chaosdsm on Thu, 10/15/2009 - 3:18pm
Yep... I'm disapointed in Maximum PC for even posting this crap...
Submitted by Wingzero_x on Thu, 10/15/2009 - 9:27am
They probably loaded that crap System Mechanic on it! I know spyware that loads faster than that POS software. Seriously MPC crap articles like this belong in PCTurd magazine. Those people will eat this crap up like a butter cake with whipped cream icing!
Vista loaded 1:36, Win 7 Ultimate :42
Just how crappy is System mechanic? Don't take my word for it.
http://www.forbes.com/2007/04/25/iolo-system-mechanic-tech-personal-cx_de_0425iolo.html
My sorry old 6 year old Wincows XP Pro SP2 32bit ...........
Submitted by ghot on Wed, 10/14/2009 - 7:56pm
....install, thats been Ghosted from 3 different mobos....boot to full readiness (zero CPU cycles) WITH typing in a 12 digit pass (I don't touch type) takes 43 seconds by stopwatch. And.....my startup programs are:
Symantec Corporate AV, the older Zonealarm, Riva Tuner 2.24, Everest 5.20..., SnoopFree, nVidia Control panel, and Symatec vptray, and w/e FIOS 20/20 Internet is doing.....and all my normal services running.
I didn't run defragger or disc cleanup or anything before timing this and this comp has been on for 3 days straight as well. AND, I timed it from dead cold power off on everything.
Rock on...Windows XP ;)
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 125W...OC'd to 3.7ghz
ASUS M4N82 Deluxe nVidia 980a SLI Motherboard
ASUS AMI 0802 BIOS
Realtek ALC888/1200 nVidia MCP72 HD Audio
EVGA 01G-P3-1280-AR GeForce GTX 280 1GB 512-bit
Corsair CM2X2048-8500C5D Dual Channel [5-5-5-15-22-2T-2.1v]
SATA WD 300GB Velociraptor
Seagate 7200.10 250GB
LG GH22LS30 CD/DVD Burner
PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750W Quad EPS12V
ViewSonic G90FB Black 19" CRT Monitor
Generic Altec Lansing (2)
Logitech Optical Mouse M-BT96a
Take an OS, and edit out all the efficiency, and what you have left is a post-XP Microsoft operating system :)
Submitted by ExarKun1138 on Wed, 10/14/2009 - 9:38am
I have a Q6600 based Gigabyte systemboard, 2 gigs ram, nVidia 9800GT, 400gig HDD, and I loaded Windows 7 Professional 2 weeks ago, and my boot times are in the 40-50 second range. My old XP boot times on the same system took around 1 minute 15 seconds. My Windows 7 system has all my apps, startup programs, etc. that I used in XP(unless they were no longer needed), and I have noticed a complete increase in ALL areas of performance. All my programs, games, graphics apps, etc. run faster on Wndows 7 than they did on my XP SP3 build. I don't know where Iolo got their "benchmarks" for Windows 7 boot times, but I certainly noticed a huge difference between XP and Windows 7. I, however, never ran Vista(switched directly from XP to W7), so I can't say whether it's faster than Vista, but as the previous poster commented on, what basis did Iolo do their testing on and how many systems? 5 system won't make a great benchmark at all. I don't trust what they have to say, and since they need to post further testing is total BS to me. Don't post ANYTHING until you've done all the testing.
Submitted by chaosdsm on Tue, 10/13/2009 - 4:35pm
"Iolo plans to release more details on its findings and methodology next week" - ROFLMAO. Blanket statements like this one from Iolo are just crap. How many different PC configurations did they test??? 1, 3, 10??? PC configuration (actual components used to build the PC), can have a dramatic difference in OS start-up time. Little things like BIOS type, BIOS version, add-in cards, integrated components can all have a dramatic effect on boot time, different OS's will handle those differences in different ways leading to differences in boot times. So unless, Iolo ran their tests on several thousand different PC & notebook configurations, their data is nothing more than an extremely generalized statement which may or may not be reflected in the real world.
Coupled with the fact that Iolo is in the business of selling "PC Tune-up" software, it makes their findings at least a little biased... if Win 7 booted faster, why would you need to buy their software...
BTW... I've seen Vista machines take as much as 8 minutes to boot to the point that the desktop is fully rendered.
Submitted by highsidednb on Fri, 10/09/2009 - 10:14am
Why should boot up time matter? Ever? We're past the days of the 15-minute-go-make-a-sandwich boot. Anyone here old enough knows that. What difference does 25 seconds make? Could someone please explain this to me? Maybe this benchmark makes sense if you're a spy and booting up your laptop fast enough to difuse a ticking terrorist bomb in order to save New York City is a priority.
What other fake benchmarks will we see in the OS wars? Number of screensavers? Cuteness factor of wallpapers? Defrag speeds? It's just more excuses to uselessly polarize people around nonsense.
Kinda makes me wonder how
Submitted by Galraedia on Mon, 10/12/2009 - 5:13pm
Kinda makes me wonder how much Microsoft is going to pay people like you to convince people like me of that. ;)
25 seconds can turn into 35, then 45, all the way up to 10 minutes or more. Why would a company produce a fake benchmark bashing Windows 7 speed when they could produce a fake one praising its speed and get millions from Microsoft by lying to the public? I'm not sure if you have enough brain cells to comprehend this but wasn't Microsoft the one that lied about Vista being faster than XP?
Submitted by DBsantos77 on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 6:09pm
For me, Vista boots faster than 7 just shy of seconds on the same machine. But as far as being able to *use* the OS as soon as you see the desktop, Win7 wins no questions asked. I prefer 7, I don't really care for the OS to boot 3 seconds faster than it's predecessor. I also don't shut down my PC, I rather have it hibernate, which takes 15 seconds.
Boo hoo.
-Santos
Submitted by pcguy94 on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 6:08pm
I am running Windows 7 RC on a 6 year old computer with an AMD Athlon XP 1800+ 1.52 ghz with 1.25 gb of ram.
My dads computer runs vista with an AMD 2 g processor and 2 gbs of ram and it is way slower than my 6 year old computer.
Win 7 is clearly faster.
Its deff faster
Submitted by Danielt876 on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 1:30pm
Once I can see my desktop, about 30 seconds, my computer is completely usable, and as fast as its gonna get, Vista wasnt even close to that.
Submitted by N25PHILLY on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 12:38pm
boots times have been the only thing I've noticed that windows 7 consistantly does better than vista. Then again I'm probably to busy trying to figure out why 7 is so much less stable than vista to have time to accuratly compare
is that machine stable with
Submitted by xj97 on Sun, 10/11/2009 - 6:50am
is that machine stable with another OS on it? In 5 months with the RC on my work laptop I never had a single system crash. I'm a software engineer that works with visualization software, and even when some experimental code would crash the video card driver, 7 would just restart the driver. In all fairness, Vista had this capability as well.
I'm just thinking back on my days as a game developer on XP, and vidcard driver crashes would often result in a blue screen :)
Heh, I agree. If you are
Submitted by Tekzel on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 7:27pm
Heh, I agree. If you are seeing 7 as less stable than Vista, you have something seriously awry.
Submitted by xj97 on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 12:18pm
Who cares what the task manager says anyway... the real test is whether your computer is usable or not. This reminds me of the hubbub about memory usage during a disk scan a while back. If the OS can utilize my hardware to it's fullest without bogging me down, I *want* them to do that. For me, Windows 7 saves me a few minutes every morning, which is nice:
Start of the morning with Vista:
- Plug in laptop, turn it on
- Put bag & jacket away
- Put lunch in fridge, get coffee & cup of water
- login to Vista
- wait for usable desktop
- start workingStart of the morning with Windows 7:
- Plug in laptop, turn it on
- Put bag & jacket away
- login to win7 (I was shocked the first time this happened)
- Put lunch in fridge, get coffee & cup of water
- start workingAnd overall I'd say it feels *much* snappier than Vista. I ran Vista for a few years, and I've been using Win7 for the past 5 months or so.
I want to see hard data on this study, it seems they have a conflict of interest anyhow. It is so easy to start a FUD campaign with all of the news aggregators these days.
BTW, I have a Dell Vostro notebook, with a fairly sluggish hard disk & 3 GB Ram. At some point I want to put an SSD in there, and take advantage of the TRIM support in win7.
Windows 7 = disappointing
Submitted by vulchan on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 11:00am
Coming from Vista 64bit ultimate to windows 7 64bit ultimate, I do believe Vista was a tad faster at boot up because I could navigate through explorer with no stuttering or hanging while the programs were loading. As far as exact times, I can't say for sure though. I will say that I am very disappointed of windows 7's constant hanging, stuttering and pausing, which was not a problem whatsoever on my identical Vista platform. GUI improvements are pretty good though in 7.
Id wager to say that your
Submitted by Xylogeist on Fri, 10/09/2009 - 6:02am
Id wager to say that your hardware might not be suited for Windows 7, or maybe you are downloading too much crap. Most likely, you are NOT taking care of it if windows 7 is doing that, it is the sleakest piece of sleek this side of the 3rd dimension.
I tested this on my home
Submitted by Ntldr on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 9:54am
I tested this on my home machine and got the following.
Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit
Cold boot: 48 seconds til I can open something and use it.
Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit
Cold boot: 1 minute 36 seconds
System:
Intel C2D @ 3GHz
DDR2 @ 1066MHz
ASUS P5Q SE/R
400GB SATA II HDD
OCZ 550 Watt PSU
Did the install and tested from a cold boot. Boot times are tested from when I pushed the button until the task manager came up and was lower than 10% usage on the CPU.
Edit: I am also running Windows 7 on my, for lack of a better term, production computer and it has been on there since the RC came out and the boots times are with in the same area + ot - 2 seconds. I have a Mini-ITX box that has a dual core Atom processor in it and that even boots Windows 7 in less than a minute.
Boot?
Submitted by Taz0 on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 9:13am
It seems, at least from the comments here, that their "tests" don't really represent the real world. My computer boots in less than 40 seconds, and hasn't changed since I installed it two months ago.
But why shut down your computer in the first place? Why not put it to sleep? My computer wakes up from S3 sleep and is ready to use faster than my monitor can respond, which means it's under two seconds. I can't even tell the difference between when it's off and when it's sleeping - in both cases all LEDs are off, all fans are off and everything else is powered down. There's really no reason to shut down your computer.
Except for...
Submitted by zstadt on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 12:34pm
...saving power (even just a little bit), cleaning inside the case, moving the computer, power outages, etc. ad nauseum.
In S3 mode, the system cuts power to unneeded hardware (HDD, fans, and so on). RAM is still powered, which is what allows it to return to it's running state so quickly.
I'd be careful making a brash statement such as, "There's really no reason to shut down your computer".
Submitted by Taz0 on Fri, 10/09/2009 - 8:14am
I though "...on a regular basis" was implied there. I guess I was wrong. So let me rephrase:
"There's really no reason to shut down your computer on a regular basis".
And as for saving power, how far are you willing to go? Do you unplug the computer after you've shut it down (since it still consumes power)?
Submitted by charliemikefoxtrot on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 8:52am
Windows and MS in general has always worked pretty hard to lie about startup times. The standard they used here was how long it took to complete the boot and give back the CPU to the user, not how long it takes for your Desktop to appear. If you can't open an aplication yet it's not booted. Windows throws up a desktop that is almost a second splash screen to appear ready but if you watch your CPU activity it is still pegged for a significant amount of time after this point. The same thing happens with the new Office, you get a window that appears to be the application pretty fast but it is completly non responsive for about 8 times as long as it takes to appear.
-CMF
Submitted by LatiosXT on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 8:39am
... This is probably just a marketing ploy or something. I've had Windows 7 for two months on a laptop and if there's a linear relationship between a fresh install and that, I should be having 2 minute boot times. That's not the case with me.
Submitted by snapple00 on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 8:07am
Lets see... The company that did the study sells tune up software for a PC...
And where are the numbers? The results? The procedure? No where. More BS from a soon to be extinct company.
I am I the only one who
Submitted by lunchbox73 on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 8:02am
I am I the only one who doesn't give a rat's ass how fast my computer boots? Ooo, it's 3 seconds faster. So?
Submitted by ironorr on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 7:46am
I've been running RC1 since it released on a three year old Pentium D desktop and a two year old Athlon X2 laptop, and both are fully booted and ready to use in less than a minute. Just as fast as they were when I first installed it. This study is a bunch of bull.
Submitted by Xylogeist on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 7:06am
LOL Max PC better update this. It is a LIE. I'm sorry to say, but this is a flat out lie. Remember the old fast-booting XP? Yea,Windows 7 boots at 4 times that speed. I've tested on the same computer with most OS's including Windows 98 - Windows 7. I've also tested with Linux Ubuntu and Fedora, and Solstice 10.5. Out of all the ones I've tested, Windows 7 BY FAR boots the fastest. And even if it didn't, it still runs 100 times smoother than any other OS I've tried (including Snow Leapord, which I got to demo at an apple store, blegh macs)
Submitted by COMMANDER_COOK on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 1:11pm
Actually, it's just how they measured it. Win7 probably does take longer to reach idle than vista because it delays certain processes not neccessary for use so it can reach a usable state faster.
In other words, those retards measured time to idle instead of time to useable. I always measure how long it takes to load IE and display google.
Submitted by Havok on Wed, 10/14/2009 - 6:13pm
That's a pretty feasible benchmark. Benching to see when your mom would see it usable. I like it!
CLICK.
thats odd because the nearly
Submitted by Pentium 0 on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 6:36am
thats odd because the nearly 5 year old pc im running it on takes under a minute to boot...or at least it seems that way. quite speedy actually.
Submitted by mattman059 on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 6:36am
I've been getting < 1min boots ever since switching from vista..vista took an average of 1.5min on my machine.
Submitted by jfigura on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 6:24am
I have noticed that on th ebeta laptop I have been running for months, it takes around 3 minutes to get to a useable state. It didn't start out that way. The sad thing is we have added no extraneous programs etc. The configuration is the exact same.All we have done with it is use to surf the net at bedtime. Nothing more.
While a big part of me wants to upgrade, XP and my dev apps all work fine as of now and for the foreseeable future. If it isn't broke, dont fix it.
Submitted by zstadt on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 6:39am
3 minutes??? Mine takes less than 1...
Now, is your laptop beta, or are you running the Windows 7 beta on your laptop? If you're still running the beta, that might be your problem. I'm running the Release Candidate, and have had no problems with startup times slowing down.
Submitted by Xylogeist on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 7:11am
Thats what I was about to say, I just got the RTM in a windows 7 party pack and upgraded my Pc, I went from a near 50 second start up, to a 24 second start up, the release is faster to boot than the RC or the Beta. My Vista laptop takes around 1 minute 15 seconds to 1 minute 30 seconds. The same Desktop that boots Win 7 boots Win XP in 1 minute. And linux... wow - being a 'lightweight' opperating system it SHOULD be going faster than 2 minutes - but usually, it DOES NOT.
Submitted by Xylogeist on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 7:12am
EDIT: OMG Stupid DP. Sorry, at a different PC than normal.
Submitted by zstadt on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 6:03am
Screw this study...
In my personal experience, Windows 7 boots faster. I may not have Vista on my PC, but my brother and my best friend both do, and my Win7 install dusts them.
Submitted by WALT_OWNS_YOUR_FACE on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 5:59am
Who cares what the hell this study says, I know for a fact that my PC boots Windows 7 much faster than it did Vista when both copies were freshly installed. FACT.
Submitted by Lorddeth on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 5:59am
I would take these study results with a grain of salt as the company in question makes system optimizer software among others.
odd
Submitted by dracx619 on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 5:46am
idk what the heck they are doin but ive been running my main system with the rtm since it came out and it still boots pretty damn fast and my laptop running the rc since it came out is doing equally as fine since ive installed it, maybe only a few seconds slower. vista on the same laptop took about 30% longer to load and had to reinstall vista on the same laptop twice within the same time frame as ive had 7 on it...
hmmm
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