The Real Quality Boot Time of 8 Verses 7

[HippsieGypsie]

Hello All. I like 8 for a lot of reasons, but the biggest is the Start Screen for what I call at-a-glance personal information via organized live tiles, which I can view at once upon logging in. I use my Live account to log onto my PC, so all of my cloud accounts (3 email accounts, people, IM, & calendar), weather app, and news/sports apps, are synced upon logging in. It takes about 3 seconds after the Start Screen appears that I see that this is performed because the live tiles start to scroll.

- The email live tile starts scrolling through new emails that I recieved with who sent it, the subject line, and a few beginning words of the message body.
- The 4 (cities) weather app tiles adjust to current temps, conditions, high/low day temps, and a exclamation point if the be a weather alert for any of the 4 cities.
- 3 news apps and 1 sports news apps tiles scrolling with headlines.
- The photo app tile scrolls with pics in my pic library folders.
- My Bing app tile starts to scroll with the day's most-searched-for, which they call Trending and featured home page pic.
- A note app with a live tile so as to see my notes.
- I have an app called Star Chart and that tile starts scrolling upcoming cosmological events.
- The finance app tile scrolls stock exchanges conditions and top story headlines.

Surely a lot of info that takes me roughly 20 seconds to watch and read the live tiles. I can then decide what I want to proceed with next.

I dual boot 7 Ultimate with 8 Enterprise Evaluation. So, to be fair, I decided that if 8 gives me all this info so quickly that I thought I'd set up 7 with start programs that would give me this info. Firstly, I found that it was impossible to do, for I'd have to open up:

- 3 seperate instances of WLM to view all the new emails I recieved from each of the 3 accounts. Each to open with the inbox folder to see new emails.
- 4 seperate instances of my weather gadget configured to view all 4 of the cities.
- 6 gadgets or 6 seperate instances of IE with pages open to Bing home, 3 news home pages, 1 sports home page, and 1 finance/stocks news home page.
- I can't get the Star Chart app for 7, so let's say another seperate instance of IE to open to a Cosmology site page.
- Notepad for notes, of which I have configured already
- A pictures gadget or desktop background app flipping through my pics.

OK, so I can't possibly configure all that, so I opted just to have WLM, one instance of IE with Bing home page, my Notepad, and my 5 gadgets that I already use. I use CoreTemp, which opens and let's say that makes up for all the rest I can't configure to open. Also, I can't configure these to open in organized (rows & columns) in minimized windows with being able to see the info I'm after in each window. It won't be organized like the Start Screen is, that's for sure!

I performed this taking timing averages of 3 boots each, from the BIOS screen appearing to the last bit of info, which is WLM in 7 for it's configured to automatically sign in and download emails. That is the last bit of info that appears.

Boot times:

7 with all configured to open upon boot -> 2 minutes and 43 seconds. This is not including the time I would have to take looking for the info in the program's windows.

8 with all the lives tiles described at the left of the screen of my 19-inch monitor -> 44 seconds. The 3 seconds for tiles to update is included.

Also, don't forget that I don't have to open a Start Menu and search for something, for it's in front of me open already. I realize one may have a Taskbar and/or desktop shortcuts to use, but more times than not I'm checking my email first, so all I do is push enter, for my email tile is #1 on my screen.

Now I ask you -> What's far faster to give me the info I desire? What's more organized? What's more convenient? What's better?

 

[jpijper]

Now I ask you -> What's far faster to give me the info I desire? What's more organized? What's more convenient? What's better?

Mmmm don't know - can you give us a hint?

 

[pcRat]

U.S.P.S. ?
are you using SATA or SSD ?

 

[mbratch]

One problem I have with Windows 8 that I do not have with Windows 7 on my laptops is an occasional delay in activation of my touchpad driver options. Sometimes in Windows 8, it takes 30 seconds or so, after apparently having successfully logged in, for my settings to activate. For example, I turn off the touch-to-click option. But when booting up and logging into Windows 8, a touch will perform a click at first until the driver settings finally engage. This is very peculiar behavior.

 

[HippsieGypsie]

U.S.P.S. ?

No, I don't use the postal service here. They're too slow as well! Not sure what you mean by U.S.P.S.

are you using SATA or SSD ?

SATA is a bus interface. I'm assuming you mean what type of drive since you asked SSD. A Seagate spinner.

 

[Coke Robot]

This is exactly how I would describe Windows 8's Start Screen. There isn't a loss of windows, those windows from that tradition Desktop transformed into smaller windows where you can peer through them.

 

[HippsieGypsie]

This is exactly how I would describe Windows 8's Start Screen. There isn't a loss of windows, those windows from that tradition Desktop transformed into smaller windows where you can peer through them.

That's a good way of looking at it.

I like the description I heard in a video that the Start Screen is like a "House built out of the internet".

 

[pcRat]

HippsieGypsie▬ I asked about hdd because I have 8 on SSD and wondering if I'll still get good responses with SATA on other pc. Looks like I will.
I was just being sarcastic with USPS

 

[HippsieGypsie]

HippsieGypsie▬ I asked about hdd because I have 8 on SSD and wondering if I'll still get good responses with SATA on other pc. Looks like I will.
I was just being sarcastic with USPS

I would imagine one gets a slightly better response out of a HDD verses a spinner. I've been thinking about getting one.

LOL! I get the sarcasm of USPS now. The mail crawl.

 

[brummyfan]

HippsieGypsie▬ I asked about hdd because I have 8 on SSD and wondering if I'll still get good responses with SATA on other pc. Looks like I will.
I was just being sarcastic with USPS

I would imagine one gets a slightly better response out of a HDD verses a spinner. I've been thinking about getting one.

LOL! I get the sarcasm of USPS now. The mail crawl.

Hi Tony, yes, if you get a SSD you don't need to worry about the boot time or overall response in any OS.

 

[HippsieGypsie]

HippsieGypsie▬ I asked about hdd because I have 8 on SSD and wondering if I'll still get good responses with SATA on other pc. Looks like I will.
I was just being sarcastic with USPS

I would imagine one gets a slightly better response out of a HDD verses a spinner. I've been thinking about getting one.

LOL! I get the sarcasm of USPS now. The mail crawl.

Hi Tony, yes, if you get a SSD you don't need to worry about the boot time or overall response in any OS.

Thanks, my friend. I'll for sure help this old heap of mine I'm sure!

 

[LittleJay]

I have Windows 8 installed on an SSD along with an exact copy on a spinner as a backup. Every time I hook the spinner up to run updates for Windows 8 I find myself saying, "Come on, come on, lets go"

 

[Arpan]

Hi Tony ,
Thanks for this great thread!! This is a very well written post with statements backed up with facts and no biased claims. I completely agree with you on almost everything you said.

Boot time in Windows 8 is such a big plus for people who do not own the strongest hardware. I'm one of them. Windows 7 takes forever to load whereas Windows 8 takes about 30 seconds on the same machine.

I don't know what people keep on saying about learning curve. Windows 8's desktop mode functions EXACTLY the same way as 7. In fact, Windows 8 can do all that on a less powerful hardware such as a tablet.

Windows 7 feels so heavy compared to an ultra-light experience on my same device (as I dual-boot).
I don't know how Microsoft did all this!!

I just love Windows 8!!!

 

[whs]

[video=youtube;103mlrKLTAk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=103mlrKLTAk[/video]

 

[HippsieGypsie]

Ok, Wolfgang, Mint looks to be a little faster at booting in VM, which isn’t truly a scientific approach, but I’ll concede to your point I think your trying to make > Mint has a faster boot time.

My point is that it doesn't give me the information I described in my OP. Surely you can understand that, can’t you?

Question about your video > Are both OSs booting up with an AV as a start program? What other start programs are opening in both, if any at all?

 

[madcratebuilder]

This is exactly how I would describe Windows 8's Start Screen. There isn't a loss of windows, those windows from that tradition Desktop transformed into smaller windows where you can peer through them.

That's how I see it. I'm on my first week of using 8/8.1 with touch. I like it a lot more than I thought I would. I installed Classic Shell so I can have the 7 look anytime I want. What stands out to me is the increased speed of 8. My 7 machine is a hot rod 8350 and I would think it should be faster then my new lap top with a 2.30Gh i5-4200U. Doing the web/email it's no faster at all.

I have a lot to learn about 8/8.1 and how to use it to it's full potential. In the meantime I'm liking the new Lenovo lap top!

 

[pparks1]

Yeah, Mint boots fast, but it's a Linux system that is a fraction of the size. Probably a 2GB install, versus a 20GB install. It was about 12 seconds versus 25 seconds to hit the desktop/start screen. I think most of us would be completely satisfied with that Windows 8 boot time.

 

[whs]

Ok, Wolfgang, Mint looks to be a little faster at booting in VM, which isn’t truly a scientific approach, but I’ll concede to your point I think your trying to make > Mint has a faster boot time.

My point is that it doesn't give me the information I described in my OP. Surely you can understand that, can’t you?

Question about your video > Are both OSs booting up with an AV as a start program? What other start programs are opening in both, if any at all?

The video was not intended to be a scientific analysis. I just thought it was interesting to compare. And running it in virtual was the only way I could record it from the screen.

The startup program situation I don't remember. I made this video quite a while ago.

Mint is my favorite - especially Mint Mate. If Microsoft does not come to their senses, that's what I will go with.

 

[whs]

Yeah, Mint boots fast, but it's a Linux system that is a fraction of the size. Probably a 2GB install, versus a 20GB install. It was about 12 seconds versus 25 seconds to hit the desktop/start screen. I think most of us would be completely satisfied with that Windows 8 boot time.

It is about 5GB.