Windows 8 Just for fun!

[OldTimer]

We've touched on the topic about the speed of Win-8 compared to XP and Win-7, but tonight I decided to do something about that.

I moved Windows 8 from an old 80 gig Sata II drive to a new Seagate SATA III (6GBM) drive on a SATA III controller card. Windows XP would not run on the SATA III controller cards(2) that I tried it on, but Win-8 runs on it even without any special drivers. So finally I've found a way to use my new SATA III drive to its fullest capability.

Now, to the speed test. The following Registry Script when run from my desktop, measures the time it takes the PC to do a shutdown and reboot. The reboot time on my XP drive was 108 seconds, while the reboot time on my Windows 8, SATA III drive is only 79 sec's.
Here's the code for the RebootTimer.vbs program.

Option Explicit
On Error Resume Next
Dim Wsh, Time1, Time2, Result, PathFile, MsgResult, MsgA, AppName, KeyA, KeyB, TimeDiff
MsgA = "Please close all running applications and click on OK."
KeyA = "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\RestartTime\"
KeyB = "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\RestartTime"
AppName = "ReBoot-Time"
Set Wsh = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
PathFile = """" & WScript.ScriptFullName & """"
Result = wsh.RegRead(KeyA & "Times")
if Result = "" then
MsgResult = Msgbox (MsgA, vbOKCancel, AppName)
If MsgResult = vbcancel then WScript.Quit
Wsh.RegWrite KeyA & "Times", left(Time,8), "REG_SZ"
Wsh.RegWrite KeyB, PathFile, "REG_SZ"
Wsh.Run "cmd /c Shutdown -r -t 00", false, 0
else
Wsh.RegDelete KeyA & "Times"
Wsh.RegDelete KeyA
Wsh.RegDelete KeyB
TimeDiff = DateDiff("s",Result,left(Time,8))
MsgBox "Your computer reboots in " & TimeDiff & " seconds", VbInformation, AppName
end if
wscript.Quit


Copy and paste the code above into a new Notepad document and save with "RebootTimer.vbs".

Then run the script and post your results.

Have fun!

 

[davehc]

Attached the original. Full tutorial on how to use it is here.
With acknowledgment to Brink.
Restart Time - Windows 7 Forums

 

[Trouble]

Actually "Brink", in that post gives credit to someone called sidney1st
Boot Up Time - Vista Forums

 

[davehc]

That's correct, Trouble. The short tutorial in both the 7 and Vista forums was Brinks, however. If you browse back there for the early release days of Vista, we had a lot of fun comparing restart times. ( with the usual practical jokers making remarkable claims!)
There was an interesting side issue. Sidney(French I believe) made a number of posts, mostly surrounding the script, over a very short period, and then vanished.

 

[Medico]

Here are my times:

Win 7 - 85 seconds

Win 8 DP - 68 seconds.

These times are somewhat dependent on me as the operator. I have a dual boot system and have to choose which OS to boot to (I use the Win 7 bootloader with Win 7chosen as the default OS), then have to enter my passwords for each OS. I also have set my boot timeout to 3 seconds instead of the default 30 seconds.

 

[davehc]

The win 7 figure is about the same for me. Windows 8 surprises me a little though, Ted. I get about 50 seconds on that, with quite a bit of my software loaded.

 

[OldTimer]

I can't begin, to tell you what I've gone through today, getting Win-8 reinstalled so it will boot up on my 6GBM controller card.
I couldn't find my Install DVD, so I had to download the ISO all over again and burn a new DVD. Now I'm going to burn about ten copies and stash them away all over the house.
I'm now far enough along in the process to run the Reboot timer and I'm now down to just 69 sec's. (from my previous 79 sec's)

All in all this PC is SCREAMING! Things that I'm used to waiting for..... I don't have to wait for now.

But the real high point of my day was receiving my Electric bill in the mail. Why is that a good thing? Because my bill is only $54.

So all in all, I'm feeling pretty good tonight.

Y'all have a great weekend, Y'hear? Happy Veterans Day!

The Doctor

 

[Medico]

It could be a difference in boot loader. Mine is a dual booted Sony Laptop with Win 7 bootloader as default and Win 7 listed as default OS. Loading the Win 7 bootloader may make a difference, although I'm just guessing. Plus there is some built in operator errors. My Win 8 DP password takes slightly longer to enter, who knows. I also have to tell the bootloader to load Win 8 whereas the Win 7 is automatically chosen if I do not make a selection.

 

[OldTimer]

Ted,
Sounds like you shot yourself in the foot. How's that feel?

Sorry about your $%&@ luck!

Happy Veterans Day!

The Doctor

 

[davehc]

In the first post. I guess that is a typo to save it as a .reg file?

 

[OldTimer]

Ya got me! Yup, that was indeed a typo. It should have been .vbs and not .reg. My bad!

Thank you for catching that. I've corrected it in my original post.

But still, having a SATA III drive, on a SATA III controller really speeds up windows (any windows).

Happy Veterans Day!
The Doctor

 

[Joe S]

I think to really compare the speeds fairly you would need a fresh install of Windows 7. Also you'd want to be running the same security software on both. Then factor in all of the updates that MS has issued for 7.
Joe

 

[davehc]

The test will only be reliable for the same user, on the same computer. There are many variables between boot up and desktop, and, even for the same user, the resulting figure can change. I regard the test as meaning from a cold boot (forget about hibernation etc), to the desktop, with, normally last for me, the internet/lan connection. By simple timing with my wristwatch, my original Windows 7 can vary by as much as 10 seconds either way.
It would be impossible to obtain realistic comparitive figures, among forum users, with vastly different hardware. I have even seen favourable comparisons for Windows 8 in a dual boot or even virtual environment. With Windows 8 as the boot manager, this is automatically flawed as it reboots into a second OS (7, for example)
BUT, as Drwho titles the thread, It's just for fun.

 

[Medico]

I believe the basic premise is that in most if not all configurations, Win 8 does indeed boot faster than Win 7. Comparing my boot times to davehc boot times to DrWho boot times is really pointless, and yes the boot times do vary (I can agree to the 10 seconds mentioned above). I do not think a good comparisson can be made to the day to day operating speeds yet because this version of Win 8 DP is lacking many features, and does have bugs, etc. Once we get closer to RTM these comparissons may make more sense.

As DrWho has done, I have my Win 8 DP set up to the desktop mode with the Metro UI disabled (using the reg. mod. Using Method 1 Captain Jack mentions caused many other problems.). I really could not get used to the tiles concept. We'll see in future iterations.

 

[OldTimer]

Once I used the batch file to delete the .dll file, (Method #1) I could not get icons to stay where I placed them on the desktop. There may have been other problems too, but that's all I can attest to.
Once I restored that .dll file and ran only the #2 option, the registry tweak, the desktop worked as it should and I was able to line up my desktop icons the way I want them.

 

[OldTimer]

I'm Baaaaaack!

I'm writing this from brand new install, on a PC that no-one should ever install Win-8 on.
It's an old Compag desktop about six years old, that a customer gave me last week.
It came with a single core AMD processor, 512 megs of ram and an 80 gig hard drive.
I increased the ram to 2 gigs, and the HD to a 200 gig, SATA II drive. The PSU shot craps on me
while I was making the improvements, so that's new too.

For some reason, when I hit the Enter key to make a new sentence or create a new paragraph, nothing happens.
I have to just keep typing.
Since I can't create paragraphs, I'll keep this short.
Win-8 came up with an acceptable video driver, but not optimal and I can't seem to find a Win-7 driver for that old
SiS Enhanced Graphics Port. (on-board video)

It could not find a sound driver either, so I spent a lot of time on my XP machine, searching for AC97 Win-7 Sound drivers,
but I finally found some that were written for Win-7, and they worked! Voila!
But it took several hours to find a Network connection that would work both on this old PC and with Win-8.
I finally settled on an Airlink 101, WiFi, (usb) adapter. It's new enough that it came with Win-7 drivers, which do work.
So here I am, finally on line, at wireless N speed. Not bad.
After a while, I did find drivers that worked for the On-Board LAN adapter. So now I have both, WiFi and LAN.

As expected, AVG errored out and would not load. Thunderbird loaded and works as expected.
I've not installed any anti-virus program yet. I'll probably use Malware Bytes Pro, as I know it does work with Win-8.
I won't be doing anything dangerous, like my banking, on Win-8, so minimal AV/AS protection should be adequate.

I downloaded the City Lights theme and it too is working great.
Now if I can just figure out, why I can't use my Enter key to create a new paragraph.
I've seen this before, but I don't remember how I corrected it. I'm on my XP-Pro computer right now and everything
is working according to plan. I'm using Firefox 8.0

Cheers Mates,
The Doctor

I'm back on my main computer and using Firefox 8.0 for my browser, to work this forum and to make
corrections to the above post.
I just couldn't leave it looking like something that a teenager did on his cell phone. Eh?
I'll go back to the old Compaq and check out my settings in Firefox.

 

[Trouble]

Re: I'm Baaaaaack!

The inability to use the enter key, seems to be unique to IE10 and the text editor used by this site. We noticed this a bit early on in the testing of Win8 DP. http://windows8forums.com/windows-8-errors-blue-screens/2563-enter-does-not-work.html
And as for the AC97 Driver have a look at this thread, had to post it as I couldn't believe I got it to work. http://windows8forums.com/windows-8-sound-audio/2259-ac97-audio-driver.html

 

[OldTimer]

I don't use I.E. anything.
I had the problem with the enter key once before, but for the life of me I can't remember what I had to do to fix it.
Old age has taken its toll. Eh?

 

[Trouble]

Sorry, I assumed that since you said

I'm writing this from brand new install

That it was a brand new install and that you were using the default (only) browser that would be available on a "brand new install".
I see you edited your OP and said you found

some that were written for Win-7, and they worked!

Any chance of getting a link to those drivers from you. I would like to give them a try myself.
Thanks
Randy

 

[OldTimer]

Links? Duh! Ya gotta be kidding! As usual, I just Googled the He** out of it!, till I found something that actually worked.
I can't tell you how many attempts to find the right drivers failed, or how many hours I spent on the search, with me being led to some bogus "Drivers for hire" sites.
Some sites were so bad that the built in Security software wouldn't even let me go there. Now, that's bad!

By the time I finally found something that worked, my brain was totally fried, like scrambled eggs.

Which driver did you want? I might be able to zip it up and put it somewhere for a quick and easy download.
Maybe!, if I can find the download files. The AC97, Sound drivers would be the most likely ones that I could find.

On my newer PC, with a MSI motherboard, Win-7 and Win-8 both installed without me having to load even one driver.
That was sure a breath of fresh air.

Cheers Mates!