The Windows 7 beta offers a speedier startup than its predecessor: for me the beta boots to a fully functional desktop in under 30 seconds, faster than the preview or Vista.
On the same exact computer, where I'm triple-booting Vista, XP, and now the Windows 7 beta (build 7000), I ran a set of startup tests to pit the beta against the rest, using my previous measurements. Here's what I found.
The hardware: My test system has an Intel Core 2 Duo processor running at 3.16GHz with 4GB of RAM. Windows XP, Vista, and the Windows 7 beta build 7000 are all installed on the same, physical SATA hard drive (partitioned, of course).
The test: Since I'm triple-booting the three operating systems, I used a simple handheld timer to get my numbers, starting at the "Choose your operating system" screen (which comes after the BIOS startup) and ending at a fully functional desktop in my first set of tests, then the user login screen in my second. I timed each OS startup three times and averaged the results to account for my fat fingers.
Test Set 1: From Boot Choice to Fully-loaded User Desktop
For this test set, I created a non-Administrator user account with nothing in startup, and set Windows to automatically log into it on boot. These numbers start at the OS boot choice screen, and end at a fully-functional, user desktop. This isn't a true test of how long a desktop would render in real-world usage, because most people DO have programs in their startup. But these tests are to compare Windows version performance, not third-party software. That all said, the numbers:
| Operating System | Average time to reach desktop |
|---|---|
| Windows 7 Ultimate (Beta, Build 7000, 32-bit) | 28 seconds |
| Windows 7 Ultimate (Preview, Build 6801, PDC edition, 32-bit) | 32 seconds |
| Windows Vista Ultimate (32-bit, SP1) | 33 seconds |
| Windows XP Professional (SP3) | 40 seconds |
Here you can see that for the first time, Windows is offering a sub-30 second start time on pretty standard modern hardware, for the first time in at least a long time (if ever, I don't have a copy of Windows 95 or 3.1 to test). Of course, Microsoft claims that Vista boots in under 30 seconds already, but that's not the case on my tower; and only 23% of you say that your system boots in under 30 seconds. It should go without saying that this has a whole lot to do with exactly how beefy your hardware is.
Test Set 2: From Boot Choice to User Login Screen
This test measures the amount of time from the boot OS choice screen to the user login prompt only, hence the shorter times.
| Operating System | Average time to reach login prompt |
|---|---|
| Windows 7 Ultimate (Beta, build 7000, 32-bit) | 20 seconds |
| Windows 7 Ultimate (Preview, Build 6801, PDC edition, 32-bit) | 23 seconds |
| Windows Vista Ultimate (32-bit, SP1) | 24 seconds |
| Windows XP Professional (SP3) | 29 seconds |
The Results
As you can see, the Windows 7 beta took 4 seconds off the time it takes to render a usable desktop as compared to the Win7 Preview, which adds up to a 12-second difference from Windows XP. The beta shaved 3 seconds off the boot time to login prompt as compared to the preview build.
I can hear the comments already—"are we really talking about THREE SECONDS?" Yes, neither of these are earth-shattering improvements, but they are clear and consistent speed boosts, and hopefully they're a sign that things will get even faster since Windows 7 is still in beta.
Anyone out there move over to the Windows 7 beta full-time? What are your impressions? Post 'em up in the comments.