Confirming my observation of longish Windows boot times, Microsoft engineer Michael Fortin today blogged about the booting improvements scheduled for Windows 7.

He rightly points out that there are really three different “boot times” to consider:

1. Boot
2. Resume from sleep
3. Resume from hibernate

Note that the Microsoft definition of “boot (1)” only gets us through desktop launch and background task execution. It does not include my number one boot annoyance, namely “what the heck is Windows doing for two minutes after booting that makes it still totally unusable?!?”

According to Microsoft’s analysis, my “boot (1)” time of 80 seconds is longish, but within the standard deviation from the mean of 30-40 seconds. I’m glad, though, that Microsoft is working on this, and doubly glad that they recognize the “other perceptions that users deem as reflecting boot time, such as when the disk stops, when their apps are fully responsive, or when the start menu and desktop can be used.”

And I’m glad they’re considering resume time, too – this morning it took my PC 16 minutes to be usable after I woke it up! Seriously – there’s the desktop, now let’s listen to the disk chug and get nothing done for over a quarter of an hour at the start of my day! While waiting, I turned on the Mac and read my mail in Entourage – not exactly the outcome Microsoft would have wanted, I bet. Here’s hoping Windows 7 brings the improvements that Mr. Fortin is clearly working on!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | Microsoft Working to Improve Windows 7 Boot Times
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