Vista boots quicker than Windows 7

By V3.co.uk staff on Oct 9, 2009 6:33 AM
Filed under Software

Much-maligned operating system wins.

Systems experts with stop watches have poured cold water on Microsoft's claims that its Windows 7 operating system boots up faster than Vista.

Redmond has been marketing Windows 7 on the claim that it can boot up quicker than Vista.

However, Iolo Technologies, which sells PC tune-up software called System Mechanic, said that Windows 7 takes one minute and 34 seconds to become usable, whereas Vista takes only one minute and six seconds.

Iolo explained 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, but Windows 7 is not actually completely usable at that point.

The company 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 gets slower and slower as time goes on, Iolo added. The firm found that a three-month old machine can take up to a minute longer to boot, or two 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.

4 comments in this discussion

""this is blatant advertising" Possibly: the motivation may be there, but is there evidence that they bent the facts? They are certainly in a position to have access to all the data about boot times."

By Sams

Tags

windows, faster, minute, takes, usable, vista

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Comments: 4

choof Oct 9, 2009 9:33 AM	This is one really pathetic piece of marketing spun into a supposed news article. Lets see, a company that wants to sell you it's tune up software claims that the latest and greates operating system is slow... let me gues, next week they will have an update to their software that improves boot time! In the meantime, thousands of users believe the headline comment that Win7 is slower. That's right, any comment these days that bashes Microsoft is for some reason news-worthy. Lazy journalism.
hellfire Oct 9, 2009 12:20 PM	In my opinion Windows 7 is in reality just another version of Vista. All that has happened is that Microsoft has made changes to the Vista platform so that it uses less power and added or changed a few things such as improved graphics and rereleased this newe version of Vista as Windows7. All this should have been done as part of a Vista Service Pack and are all changes that should have been made prior to the original release of Vista.
nvrom Oct 9, 2009 1:26 PM	While not normally prepared to defend MS, I have to say this article is a crock of scat. Having run both on several systems, all I can is "BS". As 'choof' so eloquently pointed out, this is blatant advertising. ITnews hang your head in shame.
Sams Oct 9, 2009 3:50 PM	"this is blatant advertising" Possibly: the motivation may be there, but is there evidence that they bent the facts? They are certainly in a position to have access to all the data about boot times.