Windows 7 does not boot faster

kemical

Windows Forum Admin
Staff member
Premium Supporter
Windows 7 does not boot faster

Vista is actually quicker
By Link Removed - Invalid URL
Thursday, 8 October 2009, 10:41



SYSTEMS EXPERTS with stop watches have poured cold water on Microsoft's claims that its Windows 7 operating system boots up faster than Vista.
The Vole has been marketing Windows 7 on the claim that it can boot up quicker than Vista.
However according to Iolo Technologies, which flogs PC tune-up software called System Mechanic, Windows 7 takes a minute and 34 seconds to become usable, whereas Vista takes only a minute and 6 seconds.
This tallies with our experience with Windows 7 too. It can take a long time for network cards to activate and since you can't get onto the net straight away you still end up going and making a cup of coffee while the machine boots up.
Iolo said that most measurements were based on the time it took the desktop to appear. In Windows 7 this is much faster and can be about 40 seconds. However Windows 7 is not actually completely usable at that point.
It decided to trip its stop watches on the time it takes Windows 7 to become fully usable "with CPU cycles no longer significantly high and a true idle state achieved".
Windows still gets slower and slower as time goes on, apparently. Iolo found that a three-month-old machine can take up to a minute longer to boot, or 2 minutes and 34 seconds.
Windows 7 did outperform Vista at the three-month and six-month marks. But it "trailed the older version significantly" in its earlier boot-up tests.
Iolo plans to release more details on its findings and methodology next week. µ

Link Removed - Invalid URL

It boots fast enough for me..:)
 
I have a heavily customised and tuned Vista on another partition. 7 and Vista boot pretty much at the the same time. I would agree with the report though, that Vista seems more "ready to go", when it settles on the desktop. - Still just enough time to get my coffee brewing in the morning though.
 
It seems much depends on the hardware. On my system - Vista boots faster - always has - SP1 and SP2 clean reinstall vs several builds and reinstalls of 7 - Vista always boots faster.

7 appears snappier , certainly, but there is actually little difference.

That little difference may make an impact on lower spec machines , e.g. an average price laptop - and 7 seems capable of running better on low spec gear.
 
Last edited:
Well, Seven boots up in <30secs for me, so I don't really have a problem with it. Plus, I just leave the computer in standby overnight so it really only take about 10secs to get fully up and running and a good 3secs of that is me typing in my pass. :p
 
I am hopeful that this thread does not turn into a list of posts comparing boot times. It would be quite meaningless as there are so many criteria. (CPU's Hard disk read speed and dozens of others.) On another site the posts in such a thread are toppng 600. I think the point of the news article, is the comparison between, in this case, Vista and Windows 7 - on the same computer or under exactly the same circumstances.
 
I think the point of the news article, is the comparison between, in this case, Vista and Windows 7 - on the same computer or under exactly the same circumstances.

True.......
 
Hi Drew.
So there is no misunderstanding. No, it certainly did not intend, through my post, to curtail intelligent discussion on the subject. I would just really dislike seeing a long thread with users startup times and no other useful input.

However, as you have pointed out, there are so many exceptions to the rule regarding start up times. On classic - try this if you are bored and have the time and motivation - is to try different Malware programs and, within those programs, change some options. Over a range of four different anti malware programs, I have had a change in start up of as much as 50 seconds.
 
Sorry I didn't mean to say that the article was wrong, only that even if Windows 7 boots slower than Vista, modern computers boot them up very fast anyway, so the gap of a few seconds really isn't important.
 
Sorry I didn't mean to say that the article was wrong, only that even if Windows 7 boots slower than Vista, modern computers boot them up very fast anyway, so the gap of a few seconds really isn't important.

Absolutely. I think the point of that article - and several others from magazine tests on overall speed when using applications, etc., is that Windows 7 is not massively faster than Vista at all.

In some circumstances it is slower.

A lot depends on the situation - your hardware/software and what you are doing.

That is in complete accord with my own experience.

However, there are lots of posts here, and on other Forums screaming about about how unbelievably fast 7 , and how awful Vista is.

In those cases - either there is something odd going on with the posters machine - or they are not comparing like with like.

It is curious the difference in perception between the two o/s - they are both very good.
 
A major selling point for me regarding Win 7 has been the fast boot compared to my XP install.
I don't have Vista to compare it to but consider a 40 to 45 second difference to be significant.
I'm using a very capable 3 year old Acer notebook (see sig) and imagine my surprise when I installed the beta (build 7000)
back in Jan-Feb and I saw 45 second boot times as opposed to 1 minute and 30 second boot time for XP-SP3 Pro.
As this is a multiboot machine all machine specs are identical. The only difference being the OS used and possible the physical location on my HDD. XP is at the beginning of my drive while Win 7 is on the very last partition.

This is completly booting to include either my Wired or Wi-Fi net connection.
The computer is completely usable after 45 seconds.

I do have a 7200 rpm HDD so that may make a slight difference.

The RC (build 7100) boot times are very slightly slower (51 seconds).

I have Avast!, Ati Catalyst Control Applet, Process Explorer, Core temp, Notebook Hardware Control and Dream Breed Birthday reminder starting with Win 7 as well as my NIC and other system services (about 30 processes as reported by Process Explorer).

I have the same boot items on my XP-SP3 Pro install.

I wish I could afford a 320 GB Solid State Drive. I bet the boot times would be incredibly fast.
 
Last edited:
However, there are lots of posts here, and on other Forums screaming about about how unbelievably fast 7 , and how awful Vista is.

In those cases - either there is something odd going on with the posters machine - or they are not comparing like with like.

It is curious the difference in perception between the two o/s - they are both very good.

Absolutely,SIW. A point I have been trying to put over for the past year. As I, myself, have said, here and elswhere though, I will be staying with Windows 7 as Microsoft seem to have obliged me by completing 80% of the hands on ( Vista ) tuning for me in Windows 7!
 
Absolutely,SIW. A point I have been trying to put over for the past year. As I, myself, have said, here and elswhere though, I will be staying with Windows 7 as Microsoft seem to have obliged me by completing 80% of the hands on ( Vista ) tuning for me in Windows 7!
In my case and perhaps as important as completing 80% of the hands on tuning, is the fact that Win 7 installs almost all of the drivers needed for my hardware during setup.
The drivers not installed are installed during the first Windows up date or in the case of a couple of hardware items need manual install.

Compare this to XP, a typical clean XP install on my Acer require me to previously D/L for install after setup, almost all of my hardware drivers, including my NIC.
I can't even access the internet until I install my NIC drivers.

This is a big plus IMHO, perhaps more important than boot speed.
This driver situation will make the clean install of the final release less stressful.
 
Hi RAK,


Agree - much of the tweaking that needs to be done on a Vista install - has already been done on 7.

I might add that a clean install of the VIsta SP2 integrated .iso , surprised me by having all the drivers included for my machine - apart from the network card.

A friend used exactly the same SP2 integrated media on his Dell desktop - and all the drivers were in Vista SP2 already..
 
On my laptop...

Vista
Boot: 1 min 20 seconds (approx)
Shut down: 40-50 seconds

7
Boot: 23 seconds
Shut down: 9 seconds

Hmm...
 
Like to know what kind of hardware they used for this testing as in Processor, Board, Raid 0 with 2 or more HDD's?, one hard drive?,gfx card? SLI or crossfire? , firewall-antivirus? wish they would include all every detail with there results of testing.
 
My problem is a re-boot or shut down, When I restart it may stay at the log off screen saying windows shutting down for more than 2 minutes, it does not do this everytime but often enough to drive you crazy, :confused: this is only on w-7 rc1 64 bit, it does not do this on my Vista 32 bit
 
My problem is a re-boot or shut down, When I restart it may stay at the log off screen saying windows shutting down for more than 2 minutes, it does not do this everytime but often enough to drive you crazy, :confused: this is only on w-7 rc1 64 bit, it does not do this on my Vista 32 bit

I noticed any time, I rebooted, it did of your explanation "2 min" come to find out I had a program that would make w7 stick for about that amount of time, it was peerguardian, if I shutdown PG before restart, it shuts down fast as heck.

Could it be one of your programs before you shutdown making it hang for abit longer? stardock etc.
 
Absolutely. I think the point of that article - and several others from magazine tests on overall speed when using applications, etc., is that Windows 7 is not massively faster than Vista at all.

In some circumstances it is slower.

A lot depends on the situation - your hardware/software and what you are doing.

That is in complete accord with my own experience.

However, there are lots of posts here, and on other Forums screaming about about how unbelievably fast 7 , and how awful Vista is.

In those cases - either there is something odd going on with the posters machine - or they are not comparing like with like.

It is curious the difference in perception between the two o/s - they are both very good.

Actually I'm going to be straight forward. I took the time to sign up for this forum just to tell you your wrong that it's slower. Microsoft took their time and after my testing on the same systems, boots, and services windows 7 does boot faster and is more stable. Windows 7 beat Vista in every competition.

Vista was not a horrible operating system, but it is not close to compete with the new windows 7.
 
If you do an upgrade it won't because all the things that made Vista slow are still there. I guess the best comparison would be to do clean installs of Vista and 7 and compare. DO it with nothing else installed.
 
only reason why i think i ll use win7 is its compatibility with XP software.. one or 2 minute difference in starting up will be the last reason for my choice ..:D
 
Back
Top