Microsoft Touts Incredible Windows 8 Boot Times

I wonder if this could be mimicked on Windows 7 by first logging off, and then choosing to hibernate.

The video is so so and open to criticism. She didn't say what kind of harddrive was used - it might be some 3000 dollar SSD - and she didn't explain what was booted to - there was no logon - just 5 coloured squares - can I Launch my Corel graphics program now? Aren't I supposed to logon on first? Sorry girl, but not a good video - seems like you are hiding something.

Steven Sinofsky listed the specs of the laptop later in the comments: "For folks wanting to know the machine Emily used -- it is an EliteBook 8640p (Intel® Core i7-2620M, 8GB, 160GB SSD)." A powerful laptop, sure, but still an impressive demo.

Try it on the lowest common denominator: do it on an Atom N270 with 1GB of RAM and a 5400RPM hard drive. Or how about on an ARM, same RAM, but booting off a C6 SD card (I wanna try the beta on an ARM dev board).

It doesn't matter how fast it boots Windows. They aren't including all the corporate add-on software and network drive connections after you log in. That will add about 3 minutes to the bootup time, so whether it takes 8 or 38 seconds before all that doesn't really matter.

How many times a day does one boot a computer if you turn it off at night to save electric energy? All this business of fast boots is nonsense. It's the speed that actual applications complete their tasks that is important. Compare the time it takes to encrypt files, convert (or edit) an audio-video file from one format to another, complete a complex Photoshop operation, etc., etc. You won't find people who use an Apple Air or perhaps Netbook/Ultrabook enjoying the experience when trying to do real work that involves ram access. Real work requires real computers.

@Streetlight2: i don't get you. Why would anyone complain about this? Windows has the best hardware-acceleration API's of any OS, so it's up to software developers to take advantage of it. Why would you care to put down fast boot up times, when the key is to get the OS out of the way so that applications DO get up faster? @chuck: You obviously didn't get the point of the exercise. Users like to be able to shut down their computer on a laptop just as frequently as they put it to sleep. On desktops, it's far greater. Improving that cold bootup time is a benefit that you clearly don't appreciate.

@StreetLigh2: I turn computers on all day at work. Sometimes 100's of them a day. A fast boot time is a very welcome addition from my point of view.

An interesting article on making Microsoft Sexy again can be found here.. http://irritatedtechie.blogspot.com/2011/09/not-just-another-tale-of-mic...

@waethorn, "Users like to be able to shut down their computer on a laptop just as frequently as they put it to sleep. On desktops, it's far greater. Improving that cold bootup time is a benefit that you clearly don't appreciate." Yes, yes, I certainly don't get it. With your superior knowledge, please clarify for me the benefit of restarting your computer. The near instant wake from sleep seems to me to accomplish any benefits with none of the delays of a cold restart. Cold restart is generally a -maintenance- related issue; touting it as a feature is an apologist view of something that should be minimized. I'm also amused by our tech support who constantly want to tell me to "Restart your computer" when there is any problem. This is not a Mac/PC issue. Other than kernel-level updates every month or quarter, these computers just don't need to be shut down anymore. It's an old bad habit that wastes time and should be avoided.

@WATERCHEMIST: Now who's got the reality distortion field? Updating Mac OS X takes more than one reboot (you have to do every Java update separately), and it's a far greater download time than Windows (it's over 2GB for Snow Leopard, and almost the same for Lion). I should know - I just wiped two Mac's in the last week - one with each OS. @chuck: Yes, finally we are in agreement: you absolutely DON'T get the point. Users of Windows Vista didn't like using Sleep as the default behaviour, that Microsoft changed the default back to Shut Down in Windows 7. Users that close their laptop lids still experience sleep, but most users still preferred Shut Down overall (half of laptop users, and far more than half of desktop users). Users liked the idea of starting Windows with a clean work environment. The argument to be made is that all RAM is freed up for a clean session - you know, because even in OS X, when you use the 'X' button, an applications memory isn't released at all. Instead, you have to go into an arcane menu to actually Quit, or worse, use a keyboard shortcut (or even worse, turn on right-click, because Apple has it off by default, because they WANT you using arcane keyboard+mouse combos). Also, users preferred absolutely NO power usage while they felt the computer was "off" (whether in S3 or S5 state). When you're in standby, your battery is still draining. On a desktop, far more power is used. So I guess PC users are just more energy conscious than Mac users. So now we've concluded what users prefer, and the reasons why (which you would've understood had you actually read the article), and a solution to improve that experience. The system context and drivers rarely changes, but it's the user context that's dynamic, so the static parts benefit from hibernate while still refreshing the dynamic parts. So I ask you why you would argue why this isn't an important function. Is it because you feel slighted that Apple didn't think of it first?

@WATERCHEMIST To imply Sinofsky is lying and calling Win 8 boot just "hibernation" is blatant fan boy fud. I have both Mac OS X and Windows 7 partitions on my computer. Unlike you, I don't waste my time re-installing because I have clean ghost images that take a few minutes to restore. You should try that sometime.

@WATERCHEMIST: Calling the OS X update routine "polished" is like calling an apple pie recipe complete when all you have is apples. Apple routinely updates things that are undocumented, leaves updates for months after a critical security flaw is found, and requires major downloads everytime a cumulative update comes down. Not only that, but the automatic update mechanism itself doesn't seem to check for updates any more frequently than once a week. Even still, it doesn't even check immediately post-install (something I tested recently with a Snow Leopard 10.5.1 box), leaving the system wholly insecure from the get-go. When you do Java updates, you have to do each one at a time, in order, without any option to get it to do them all together. That's just dumb. Oracle's Java runtime allows you to update to the latest version without any problems whatsoever. I'm not a fan of Java either, so for Apple to integrate it into the operating is absurd, what with the number of security flaws creeping up on it (Waledek and Koobface Mac variants have already run through several paces on Facebook, which take advantage of Java flaws). Now Apple says that Java wouldn't be there in new OS X flavours, but the recent Lion install that I did says otherwise.

@Waethorn Despite your comments, I understand the issue perfectly. Your remark tells the tale, "Users of Windows Vista didn't like using Sleep as the default behaviour, that Microsoft changed the default back to Shut Down in Windows 7" Maybe that is so on WINDOWS, but I don't know any Mac users who shut down their computers except for monthly/quarterly software updates. Everyone just puts them to sleep. Despite your claims of some strange benefits to a restart, there are none in a properly designed OS. Application memory is reclaimed all the time, not just when programs terminate. Perhaps Windows is different, but OS X is Unix and it is very good at memory usage, having originated on systems with (really!) 64K of memory. Except for kernel level software updates, restarting a computer periodically to make it run better or reclaim memory, etc, is an admission that you're using a poorly designed OS. I just checked, my laptop has been running for 12 days, the desktop for 16 days. Both are operating exactly the same as the day I started them. The desktop restarted because of a power failure during a storm, the laptop got an Apple system update that required the restart. Perhaps Windows 8 will finally get this right for you.

I always assumed that Microsoft's memory management was superior to Mac's, after all Mac's just quit apps when they feel like it. This is from hearsay and quotes on Youtube, and umpteen magazine articles down the years. Perhaps OSX has finally caught up in this aspect. You live and learn..