Friday February 10, 2012 3:21 PM AEST

Atomic MPC > News > Build > Operating Systems > Windows 7 slower to boot than Vista

Windows 7 slower to boot than Vista

Windows 7 taking a step backwards in speed?

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.

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28 Comments

RaRaDawg Oct 9, 2009 10:10 AM	D: And you see everybody yapping, "Windows 7 is what Vista should have been"
predator88 Oct 9, 2009 10:20 AM	i have to disagree with this..windows 7 runs better on ym laptop then what xp did..its great.
Hubbo Oct 9, 2009 10:21 AM	Solution: Plug in a SSD, works wonders.
dudeman9 Oct 9, 2009 10:35 AM	Maybe this idiodic mob should do their research first and actually find out why Windows 7 does this. Some people may note that when Vista first loads, it is completely unusable. Windows 7 PURPOSELY designed to be quick to the desktop, then take it's time loading everything slowly in the background so the computer remains usable while everything is still loading. People expect to start using their desktop the moment it appears, this is definately not possible on your run of the middle Vista machine. It's no miracle, but it does make booting into Windows 7 from cold boot a much more pleasant experience.
Jeruselem Oct 9, 2009 10:38 AM	Iolo Technologies can shove it's useless software and blatant marketing spin somewhere else.
Ravennoir Oct 9, 2009 11:20 AM	its just crap, Windows 7 is heaps faster than Vista
orcone Oct 9, 2009 11:37 AM	wendows seevn can go to hell i am user
A Hitman Oct 9, 2009 12:01 PM	I honestly don't notice a difference in boot speed.
scruffy1 Oct 9, 2009 12:07 PM	if you don't turn it off, then boot time is irrelevant does the acronym s3 mean anything ?
Bloek105 Oct 9, 2009 12:47 PM	Would have to agree with predator windows 7 has been fantastic on my gamer (few little problems with programs) and my laptop which previously disliked vista with a passion. Also agree with dudeman as im a tech and the ammount of people that come in and complain that there computer once loaded to the desktop is slow and like usual i have the frivaless task of telling them the same story over and over again. orcone-"Wendows seevn" hmmm.........
Aussie Infidel Oct 9, 2009 1:11 PM	ive noticed a large improvement in boot speed over vista, even in opening folders and such its much quicker
Pari Oct 9, 2009 1:51 PM	Am I the only one who dosent give a fluff? Seriously if you cant wait 1min for your pc to boot up then just keep it on all the time. also this is BS anyway.
SlickGrunt Oct 9, 2009 2:34 PM	Yeah, Vista boots in to windows quicker - but it's still loading up and indexing, which makes it absolutely useless for another 2-5 minutes. bah who cares? Windows 7 has already been recieving solid praise, which I can't say Vista ever had at the beginning. Just another bunch of brats wanting to make the geek headlines.
Mudg3 Oct 9, 2009 3:56 PM	Its the inquirer what more can I say?
davidian Oct 9, 2009 4:18 PM	So they've done 3 month and six months tests? Sorry, when did 7 RTM? Well I personally find 7 more responsive...
Ezekill Oct 9, 2009 5:26 PM	I'm still naming my second born 'Seven'. Vista is up for adoption if anyone wants the stammering, incontinent little mongrel.
H3VIW8 Oct 9, 2009 6:22 PM	in my limited experience 7 is way faster than vista. anyway tests are stupid, and everyone will be different. what you have hardware wise, what you have installed, what is in your startup list. plus really who cares.
sUpEr gEEk Oct 9, 2009 9:33 PM	Who cares about 20something secs? Its just 20something secs. It performs a hell of a lot better then "VISTA" and previous windows and is a lot faster then XP.
.:Cyb3rGlitch:. Oct 9, 2009 11:31 PM	Marketing stunt + silly journalists = news. The circle completes.
philo-sofa Oct 9, 2009 11:58 PM	40 seconds to (wired) interwebs and so on fully available and CPU load @ or below 5% on my system (i7 860, 1600 MHZ CL7 & WD Black with Win 7 RTM). To be fair I have never had Vista on this latest system, but on my C2D system I remember even the RC1 being roughly this quick to boot and become usable, it was certainly no slower than Vista. Would love to see testing by someone without a vested interest in Win 7 appearing slow.
cyber bonzai Oct 10, 2009 4:56 AM	hahaha, perhaps if they had the actual retail version of windows 7 then mabye they would be able to time it properly..... as a person fortunate enough to have it i can safely say on a good computer it boots up very quick and it can access the internet and load into a game in 40-50 seconds at the longest. This is far faster than vista.
Damo Oct 11, 2009 6:46 PM	Ultimately, Win7 will win the battle.
Spider-Man Oct 12, 2009 11:18 AM	i might have to test this myself on my rig. for the most part though i havent noticed a great deal of differance between the two atm, but vista is running off a RAID 0 array and is quite old, whereas 7 is off a sinlge 320GB hdd and its brand spankers. though, i really dont care, vista works fine for me, as does 7.
sirtrancealot Oct 12, 2009 11:52 AM	I must also disagree, I have Win7 on 3 machines, my Sempron HTPC, my Core2 HP Laptop, and My 6000+ X2, All 3 are much faster running win7, boot up, shut down, and general use. all using x64 of course!
hecktik_bro Oct 12, 2009 4:56 PM	Mate i've formatted my pc's thousands if not hundreds of thousands of times, i've got six laptops, and guess what? Sure maybe even if its possible a full loadup on vista might be faster on SOME SETUPS but using vista x64 bit on my desktop mate, it was absolutely positively rubbish. The day vista came out, two days later it was uninstalled and back onto xp 64 bit.. now windows 7 seems to be the next xp because its stable, has backward support for most programs and i think it is personally faster because of the design, but don't forget your comparing a beta against a fully tweaked version of vista.. so even if its true, just wait and windows 7 will pwn and then take a nice toilet urination on windows vista. ~~Love it~~ win 7
Daff Jan 21, 2010 1:23 PM	Hundreds of thousands of formats? That's a minimum of 7 formats a day for 30 years. That's impressive.
DiStOrTeD Jan 21, 2010 5:28 PM	First I will say, Cool bump bro. Secondly it was worth the bump. That made me laugh. FULLY HECKTIK FORMATTER BRO, I FORMAT 20 TIMES A DAY
sirtrancealot Jan 22, 2010 11:50 AM	hope he was at least using an unattended install.. lol

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