There’s absolutely no reason you should be waiting the three-plus minutes it takes your computer to boot up Windows, says Woody Hobbs, CEO of Phoenix Technologies. And indeed, if Hobbs has his way, you may not have to endure those waits much longer. Phoenix says its new technology, HyperSpace, will offer mobile PC users the ability to instantly fire up their most used apps – things like e-mail, web browsers and various media players – without using Windows, simply by pressing the F4 button.
Erm… My Vista desktop’s boot time is 30 seconds. On my XP laptop, it takes 20-30 seconds to recover from hibernation.
If they’re getting three minute boot times for Windows, they must be shopping around to find a worst-case scenario from a disreputable vendor to prove a point.
heres a newsflash for you, after winblows has been used for 2-3 months, it takes considerably longer than 30 seconds to start…
Here’s a newsflash for you: after using Windows for many years, but not allowing everything to run in the background (Check for updates for this app, etc. as well as all spyware or such) Windows doesn’t degrade in a significant way, especially if you run the defragger once a month. Unless you keep on adding opened network shares and remote system logons into the standard startup sequence, Windows isn’t nearly as bad as you’d like to imply: it all comes down to understanding and preventing all the crap that people typically install from getting stuck in the startup sequence.
I finally had a reason to reinstall XP on my main system last year, but not at all for the reason you’d expect: I installed it when it was new, and the reason I had to reinstall was due to a hard drive death from old age and lightning strike (when it was younger) induced failure.
Here’s a newsflash for you: after using Windows for many years, but not allowing everything to run in the background (Check for updates for this app, etc. as well as all spyware or such) Windows doesn’t degrade in a significant way, especially if you run the defragger once a month
Newsflash for you: all those provisos invalidate your point for 99% of users out there. Phoenix’s technology might not bring any benefit to the 1% of people that can take care of a Windows machine, but that hardly matters to them.
Windows isn’t nearly as bad as you’d like to imply: it all comes down to understanding and preventing all the crap that people typically install from getting stuck in the startup sequence.
Windows (as a platform — the OS plus its apps) is bad because it requires that kind of TLC to perform well. The normal use-case is with an inexperienced user. If a product cannot cope with “expected wear and tear”, it’s flawed by design.
Windows apologists complaining about “stupid users” always strikes me as entertaining. “If users weren’t stupid, Windows would be great!” It’s like saying “If we didn’t have gravity, designing airplanes would be easy!” Bitching about reality is pointless. Users are what they are and gravity is what it is. A product can only be judged by how well it functions in the context of reality (which can be a surprisingly hard concept for people to grasp). Yeah, designing products to accommodate reality is hard, but that’s why engineers get paid the big bucks, right?
Edited 2007-11-06 02:14
Do you honestly expect that Linux would fare any better if average users used it, where “average users” are the ones just as likely to install all that excess crap that they do?
The big reason Linux isn’t nearly as likely to be loaded down with all those things to slow things down on bootup has absolutely nothing to do with the design and everything to do with the educational level of the user and their expectations: therefore, Linux is as flawed as Windows by design, but it’s only the more typical Linux user that keeps that equally flawed design from becoming as blatant, that’s all.
Do you honestly expect that Linux would fare any better if average users used it, where “average users” are the ones just as likely to install all that excess crap that they do?
Yes, I do. Linux software doesn’t do all the nasty stuff Windows software does, so installing stuff randomly won’t screw things up. Moreover, the platform itself is more secure (no ActiveX or silly things like that), so all the virus scanners and whatnot that slow down Windows machines are unnecessary.
Macs are largely the same way. When I switched my mom from a PC to a Mac, my “support incidents” went from a couple a month, to a couple a year. She hasn’t gotten any better with computers in that time — the system just better handles abuse at the hands of a novice user. No need to defrag, no need to update virus definition files, no need to run spyware and ad blockers, no need for preventative maintenance, etc. The only thing I have to do with that machine is run “Software Update” once every three or four months.
Now, as for who is to blame about the problems Windows has a platform, that’s a matter of debate. Microsoft deserves a lot of blame for making such a complex system, and indeed, embracing a “culture of complexity” from bottom to top. At the same time, Windows application authors deserve a lot of blame, for well, being mean-spirited assholes who like to torture their users.
“The big reason Linux isn’t nearly as likely to be loaded down with all those things to slow things down on bootup has absolutely nothing to do with the design and everything to do with the educational level of the user and their expectations: therefore, Linux is as flawed as Windows by design, but it’s only the more typical Linux user that keeps that equally flawed design from becoming as blatant, that’s all.”
… and distrobution maintainer’s vetting of software before it’s included into the repositories or install disks for use by “average users”. Well, that and the differences in architectural design which limit the damage a user can do to the overall *nix system without intentionally becoming root.
It’s not realy relevant though unless there is some way that “do you honestly expect Linux would fare any better” somehow relates to Phoenix’s intentions to develop this solution.
Newsflash for you: all those provisos invalidate your point for 99% of users out there.
Well, considering that you pulled that statement out of your arse without any justifiable data, the rest is just nonsense.
Windows apologists complaining about “stupid users” always strikes me as entertaining.
Nobody is calling anybody “stupid users”. That was your insult. And standard boot time has no bearing on return from hiberation. They’re completely different scenarios and, frankly, this “solution” is chasing a problem. Hint: With return from hiberation results measured in seconds, this dude is going to have a hard time justifying what he’s selling.
people are stupid.
You are stupid. I am stupid – we are all stupid in the context of things we know nothing about. Although you could suggest the guy could have said ‘computer illiterate’ instead.
Are you suggesting I’m going to lug my hibernating laptop round about with me all day and expect it to be fully charged when I open it? fast-forward 2030
I find that windows does indeed heavily slow down from normal use, registry filling up, files not automatically installed/removed correctly. Windows has never been able to optimise its application structure and all you really have to do with both XP and vista is install Office 2k7 and Adobe apps and you’ll find your shiny new computer boots like treacle. Add Maya to that and your asking for trouble.
I might also suggest that, that is **If** your computer returns from hibernation and doesnt spaz like the majority of them.
…but not allowing everything to run in the background (Check for updates for this app, etc. as well as all spyware or such) Windows doesn’t degrade in a significant way…Unless you keep on adding opened network shares and remote system logons into the standard startup sequence, Windows isn’t nearly as bad as you’d like to imply…
That is, it won’t start slowing down as long as you don’t, you know, actually use it?
Sure there are some things that install themselves into the startup that you shouldn’t, but some stuff it’s convenient to have (mapped drives, antivirus, etc) and of course the registry grows every time anything is installed, or modified, or used. I’m not saying don’t be careful, but from my experience, the only people (new or experienced) that still have a fast Windows install after a few months are the people that barely ever touch it.
Can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.
Here’s a newflash for you: it doesn’t.
My 2 year old XP installation on my laptop takes ~30 seconds to login screen and it has had all kinds of goofy stuff installed (games, cdwriting software, vpn software etc).
“My 2 year old XP installation on my laptop takes ~30 seconds to login screen and it has had all kinds of goofy stuff installed (games, cdwriting software, vpn software etc).”
My Linux box boots in 17 seconds to login screen, but you don’t hear me bragging .. oh now wait a minute
Seriously, I just ensure that the KDM rc script is started early as possible.
Who’s bragging? I’m just saying it doesnt take 3 minutes (a ridiculous claim). I’ve never had any Windows installation that has taken that long and I really dont know what people do to screw their system up that badly.
They do a windows update
Sorry you got modded down. It’s a shame that the majority of OSNews readers are inept at using computers and mod down people that are better than them, but that’s the way it is round here. It sucks.
My 2 year old XP installation on my laptop takes ~30 seconds to login screen and it has had all kinds of goofy stuff installed (games, cdwriting software, vpn software etc).
How many manual interventions did you have to perform to keep it that way? My experience with Windows is that it really requires a lot of babysitting to keep it performing well.
Pretty much none at all. I’ve defrag’ed it 2 times but that’s pretty much it.
Edited 2007-11-07 02:38
…and the login screen is non-functional. With a disgustingly large amount of services shutdown, the removal of a tonne of ‘Thinkvantage’ applications, and a near blanking of startups from the startup menu and registry… my brand-new Thinkpad finally boots to a functional state in a decent time. As was, straight from IBM, it’d probably be dead on the 3 minute figure.
Whereas, from Grub -> Fluxbox, total time is under a minute.
Those goofy applications will not load until you’re logged in. Undoubtibly, they will take their time doing so. Most annoyingly, almost all Windows applications (and the desktop itself) feel they must steal focus while loading: making the start menu near useless, too.
Total time for Grub -> XP (logged in) is less than a minute for me.
it really depends on how you define boot. if you’re talking the time you push the power button to the time the desktop is fully loaded and ready to roll, it’s often significantly longer than 30 seconds, but not typically more than 1:30. if you’re talking the time it takes to display the desktop, then yes 20-30 seconds is about right.
even with clean startup and services lists, the time it takes between the desktop displaying and being usable can be substantial once Windows has been on a machine for a while.
if this setup allows someone to open up their laptop and start working on their term paper in 10-15 seconds, i’m all for it.
“if this setup allows someone to open up their laptop and start working on their term paper in 10-15 seconds, i’m all for it.”
I’m all for it simply because it’s another technological step forward. No one else yet has solved this particular puzzle so best of luck to Phoenix for dreaming it up and giving it a go.
It’s not always best to do a thing just because you can but hardware and software are two of the few areas where I think that mind set really drives exploration and evolution forward.
Besides all that, don’t we already have something like this in the form of Media Center PCs? I’m sure that if Microsoft can do instant access to video, DVD, television and music playback they can also come up with instant Office and instant web browsing.
Though, it will be nice to see this from a third party so there isn’t a Microsoft-only lock-in. Here’s to hoping this really takes off for Phoenix.
Agreed. From ‘bell chime’ to desktop on this MacBook, it takes 23seconds. IHO that is very fast, if one needs ‘instant’ access to something – wouldn’t the best solution be something like a pda with wireless internet access? I’m assuming that it has to be loaded up very quickly because there is some information required that can’t wait a few seconds.
Assuming one isn’t stupid, one would have the information saved on a thumb drive – load the thumb drive or flash card into the device and voila, access to it.
From what I see, all Pheonix is trying to do is do what VMware is attempting, replace one monopoly with another monopoly – no thank you, I want choice, I want the ability to tell the OS vendor to go heave ho, and I certainly don’t want my firmware vendor getting in on the action and including things in the firmware which quite frankly, shouldn’t be near the damn thing in the first place.
Maybe someone should tell Woody how to put his laptop to sleep… Using this “new technology,” it takes me three second to “boot up.”
Edited 2007-11-06 00:16
You’re not who this product is being targeted at. They’re going after ABMer Linux zealots with an ax to grind.
Edited 2007-11-06 03:03 UTC
Geez, you’re quick. My FreeBSD on a ThinkPad takes around 5 seconds.
Sleep requires the machine to remain minimally powered on. Hibernate saves the “sleep” ram data to hard disk so power can be cut completely however, my experience has been that hibernate is not too be trusted on the hardware I can afford.
One solution does not fit all users and this new one may work better than current solutions for some people. Heck, I’m interested to see it’s progression simply because it’s not been done before. When was the BIOS extended in any major way beyond power management and supporting newer hardware?
I wrote my own operating system and it boots in 3 seconds. During this time, it even recomplies half of itself! Does anybody know what other operating systems do during boot that takes so long? Specifically? Is it waiting for network time-outs or something? Probing hardware? They should have a key you press if you want to probe hardware.
http://www.losethos.com
Uh, sorry, but I’d bet dollars to donuts that your OS doesn’t support thousands of possible hardware combinations.
True 😉
Seriously, though, they might store info on the current hardware instead of probing every time. That’s what mine does.
Mine supports: keyboard, generic mouse, VGA graphics, generic hard drives, CD-ROMs, internal PC speaker. (Good enough for amateur games.)
When you compile it, you tell it what hard drives you have and it gets stored in the kernel. You recompile if it changes.
The mouse is configured during boot in the background and it takes a couple seconds.
writting an OS is far beyond my abilities so for that I congradulate you and if it was/is released for download, I’d quickly add it to my OS collection. However, comparing an ansi/ascii interface based OS to a full blown GUI like X or Windows may not be entirely accurate.
Dos with Deskview boots to a usable prompt in less than a minute on modern hardware but I’m not going to claim that this makes it better than a modern OS with complete feature set.
(I’m not knocking your work at all though. The URL is going into my bookmarks even if it was spammed out here in the news forum.)
There is definitely great opportunity for having better computing experience here no matter which OS you use. Personally, I prefer linux.
But, I don’t care that Hyperspace (or its predecessor http://www.splashtop.com/) are linux based or the fact that it provides browser and other nonsense. Could be MS based for all I care, but as long as possibility of integrating something like terminal, gparted (or ghost for that matter), as long as BIOS could enable me to access my drives without needing working OS and backup them to network… it rocks. (I hate having zillion of bootable CD-s with me and some computers don’t even have CD drive)
There would be definitely much better advertising if they would advertise computer maintenance tools for your hardware along with including browser and others. It would simply drive off OS evangelists, but this way they are just starting holy war. As long as they include some kind of memtest86 and checkers for all other hardware.
Still have to say, it is better for us that Hyperspace linux based. It means that it will have to be public and hopefully people will be able to include some really needed things in firmware instead of halfassed things Phoenix and splashtop are providing.
This is not so much important feature for Joe User, but for maintainer of large amount of boxes is a holy grail.
Now, just think. Computer doesn’t boot for some reason you don’t know why. Wouldn’t you like to browse the net for answer?
Edited 2007-11-06 06:34
What is it?
Is this some ROM-based mini OS?
YURP, ‘TIS
Considering the BIOS IS one of the slowest part of the boot, I find it quite hypocritical to pretend to be the savior of fast booting when Phoenix and co. have constantly block the adoption of faster BIOS option (like LinuxBIOS).
I don’t argue any OS preference. But fix the damn BIOS first !!
You’re all missing the main implication — that is, that
http://www.splashtop.com/index.php
and now Phoenix are making the Windows and Linux OS unnecessary for the casual User that only wants to surf the internet, check emails, etc. If either of these changes to the BIOS allow the User to add their own favorite apps to their instant-on menus, then there would probably be no need for Windows, Linux or any other OS period.
Woody used to be our CEO. What a crook.