14 DAY TRIAL // According to Microsoft, a high-performance desktop running Windows 7 should boot in as little as 10 seconds, if the machine is properly optimized.
The software giant considers a computer with the following hardware configuration: Dual-core 2.8-gigahertz (GHz) CPU, 10,000-RPM disk, and 3-gigabyte (GB) memory, a high performance PC.
Obviously, the vast majority of end users have never seen a Windows 7 computer boot in as little as 10 seconds, and some might not even believe that it’s possible.
The Redmond company says that not only can Windows on/off transition performance can be improved, but even released a resource designed to provide guidance.
The Windows On/Off Transition Performance Analysis is available for download free of charge, covering Windows 7 RTM and SP1 as well as Windows Vista.
Microsoft notes that the guide is tailored to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), independent software vendors (ISVs), independent hardware vendors (IHVs), and systems analysts.
“This paper explains the Windows on/off transitions in detail, highlights performance vulnerabilities within each transition, and shows how to identify and analyze these issues by using the Windows Performance Toolkit (WPT),” the software giant said.
“Performance analysis is often necessary because system extensions such as applications, drivers, services, and devices can negatively affect on/off transition times if they are not properly optimized. Poorly optimized system extensions usually result in the following: delays, lack of parallelism and excessive resource consumption.”
Microsoft continually builds innovations into new iterations of Windows, but since the operating system ships preinstalled on new OEM machines, the Redmond company does not have the final say about the resulting products.
Even in scenarios in which OEMs load a range of crapware on their machines, slowing them down considerably, the software giant and Windows still take all the criticism for poor performance.
The Windows On/Off Transition Performance Analysis guide is an excellent resource for speeding up Windows startup/boot and shutdown times, but Microsoft’s partners need to actually leverage it.
“The guidance in this paper can help significantly reduce on/off transition times,” Microsoft promises.
“We have applied these performance optimizations to many systems in our laboratories and reduced boot-to-desktop time on some systems by almost 50 percent. On some systems, boot time decreased by a total of 40 to 50 seconds. However, the effect of each driver, service, or application on transition times is unique, and your results might differ.”
Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) RTM Build 7601.17514.101119-1850 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) RTM are available for download here.