Microsoft support forums are abuzz with people complaining that Vista boots and launches applications far slower than XP — even though Microsoft said a primary Vista goal was faster boots. Have you noticed Vista booting slower than XP?
I’ve found that Vista boots almost twice as fast as XP. To test it out, I used a Dell Inspiron E1505 laptop with 1 GB of memory. I have it set up as a dual-boot machine, and both versions of Windows are recent installations.
In Windows XP, it takes 45.1 seconds to get to log-in; on Windows Vista it takes only 26.3. That’s quite a difference.
I have several other PCs with XP installed, and several other PCs with Vista installed, but comparing their boot-up times is tough. My XP machines have been around for several years, and have accumulated the usual assortment of startup junk, while my Vista machines are much cleaner. So naturally, on them Vista boots faster than XP.
What have you found — does Vista boot faster than XP, or have you found that XP is the faster of the two. Let me know.
My Vista machines boots okay, but shutdown is forever, over 7 minutes. Kinda makes me think about reinstalling DOS.
Vista Does boot faster if there is enough system resources, just because the computer is "compatible" doesn't mean it is good with Vista. My shutdowns are decent two. Just bought a laptop that I 'll quad-boot on. DBSD, Mepis, XP, and Vista.
I've got Vista running on a desktop with single core Athlon 64, a notebook with a 1.6GHz Pentium-M, and a notebook with a Core 2 Duo T7200 w/2G RAM. All of them seem to boot faster than XP to me (the first two boxes mentioned ran XP before being upgraded to Vista). Apps seem to run a tad bit slower on the older single core PCs (each with 1GB RAM). I thought the Core 2 Duo should feel faster than it is. But, I don't consider it slow.
I've found myself using Hibernate a lot more than I did with XP. Vista seems to hibernate (save memory to disk) reasonably fast on all the PCs and then resume reasonably fast too (faster than a normal boot that requires loading drivers, etc.).
I'm running Vista on a 3 year old Dell Inspiron 9100 laptop. It boots quite quickly but then takes forever for Windows Live OneCare and the Windows Home Server connector to get started
I have yet to get it to install much less boot up.Worst OS as of Yet.Good job Microsoft.DOS 6 was better than this with WIndows 3.1
I have a brand new out of the box Dell 1501. It takes at least four (4) times longer to boot than my Dell 700m or E1705 with XP and lots of startup programs. All three machines have 1 GB memory and fast processors. Tell me what that's about!
My computer on xp takes just over ten seconds to boot to desktop
I have used vista on a brand new Dell machine dual core cpu's 2gb ram, and i was extreemly dissapointed with the machines load time, i believe much of the fault is due to the new version of internet explorer / explorer, that seems painfully slow when compared to the old internet explorer.
MS really need to get there act together fast, before the google owners wake up and release their own operating system, with the ability to run i386 programs - it will happen.
Wes Tarbuck
MCP
vista boots slower than xp and its alot slower in more ways its a bit of a joke
Vista boot times are very slow on my system - a new Dell XPS-410 (Core2 Duo 2.4Ghz, 4GB RAM, ATI X1300 video card with 256MB, and 2 250MB SATA drives). It takes about 2.5 minutes to boot from a cold start. Not what I expected from a new computer. Dell's tech support claims to have no idea what the problem might be.
My Vista boot interrestingly slower and slower, practically by every boot-up. Shut down is slow too, some 1-2 minutes sometimes...
For me (on notebooks), the boot time to get to the login screen is faster on vista, but vista also takes longer to load everything after u enter your pw. Personally I feel XP was alot faster overall (compaq presario), though that may be because I used to use an AMD 2800 processor, while now I use an intel duo core 1.8ghz processor (dell inspiron 1520.
Hibernating is relatively the same speed.
I have a new laptop with vista installed. I find XP to boot faster and accessing files, folders and internet faster with XP. Is there a fix for this?
I have a Dell Latitude d830 that would get me to the login screen in Windows XP Pro in about a minute or less. In Vista Ultimate, it takes 9 minutes (I'm not even kidding, I timed it) to get from pressing the power button to staring at my dekstop (assuming about 10 seconds to enter my login info). I have no idea what the problem is.
I AM RUNNING XP PRO ON 10 MACHINES AND VISTA ON 2 NEW MACHINES. XP IS ALOT FASTER ON BOOT. ALL MACHINES ARE MEDIUM SCALE AND UP.I DONT UNDERSTAND.I CAN NOT SEE UPGRADING TO A SLOWER SYSTEM.
I AM RUNNING XP PRO ON 10 MACHINES AND VISTA ON 2 NEW MACHINES. XP IS ALOT FASTER ON BOOT. ALL MACHINES ARE MEDIUM SCALE AND UP.I DONT UNDERSTAND.I CAN NOT SEE UPGRADING TO A SLOWER SYSTEM.
I AM RUNNING XP PRO ON 10 MACHINES AND VISTA ON 2 NEW MACHINES. XP IS ALOT FASTER ON BOOT. ALL MACHINES ARE MEDIUM SCALE AND UP.I DONT UNDERSTAND.I CAN NOT SEE UPGRADING TO A SLOWER SYSTEM.
I recently got a Dell Inspiron 1501. Takes a while to boot. My old laptop from 2 years ago w/ xp boots faster. Dell technician said that I need to have at least 2 GB memory to really see it boot fast coz min. req. for memory for Vista is 1 GB
I recently purchased a SONY VAIO for my music making at home equipped with Intel Dual Core T5500, 2 GB RAM DDR2, 150 GB HD and a GEFORCE Graphics card with 400 MB (128 DEDICATED) with Vista Home Premium.
I am also a computer technican and spend much of my time optimizing computers. I must say that vista has some great features, but does require more computing power to run. I have noticed that the dual core processing does not help when running different tasks, installing software and running another, it seems to freeze things up.
With regards to booting, I thing XP overall boots quicker and can be optimized better. Vista loads quick to login, but then takes quite some time to let you start using it. Shame that such a powerfull machine can operate to full performance.
I get to login in about 50 secs but from login till everything loads takes 3 minutes, on a laptop its a pain. I have to get to class 5 minutes early just to boot my computer!
Windows Vista boots faster, and is a faster OS in general.
You, are a faggot. On my machine XP boots within 30 seconds, Vista within 3 minutes.
My machine is 2GB of ram 8800 GTS, and a core2 duo. Boots at least twice as slow as XP, and this is a fresh installation of vista, compared to a years worth of use on XP.
Vista on my dual core purpose-bought 2.0GHz T7200 with 2GB DRAM takes rather more than 10 times longer to boot than my previous XP Pro system running on a lesser (1.4GHz Pentium M 1GB) system. Normally it boots in a little over 10 minutes and today it took about 30 minutes.
if you are to dumb to read the manual or get some information about the warez you use then don´t blame the companys!!!
90% of the users are plain stupid... periode.
vist uses RAM to cache data... XP just waste the RAM when it is not use.
thats a service called SUPERFETCH.. thats why VISTA SEEM to need so much RAM.
guys stop talking about things you have no clue about... please.. don´t show the world how ignorant you are..
OMG more ejournalism that perpetuates itself into the high ranking popularity pole. FFS here goes my turn. Hmm i've recently been informed that ATI and Nvidia are at war over the crown for the GPU champion. It's a tough call, my GPU card has been here for years and it still works. What do you find to be true, are ATI and Nvidia at war who is the best... let me know.
Well I guess it depends on what you place on your laptop or computer cause if you have loads of crap of your pc like limewire and all the p2p stuff or similiar would kill the computer performance plus also the lack of space in the harddrive. Using the Sony Vaio the CR series, Vista start is pretty fast and I get all my apps stuff finish with in 5secs. Best way for any boot up is make sure your desktop is clear of stuff, like my desktop has only the garbage bin and that it. I notice if you have a messy desktop, your laptop or pc tend to load slower and without it load pretty fast. If you don't believe, try it and you see the results. If you get a very slow down during the part where you get the bar saying loading Windows XP or Windows Vista meaning that either you have shitloads of spywares or virus or that somehow you mess up your bootup commands. Btw....you should only get Vista if you have 1gb ram minimum with at least 677MHZ, or else you get a really ugly lag when running things for the basic but for premimum and others i recommended getting at least 800MHZ with at least 3gb cause it takes roughly with everything 500 to 900mb of your ram. You can check how much ram is being used by the side gadget function in vista, there a cpu meter and ram meter app in there.
I suspect that Vista takes a particularly long time to log into a -domain-. If you have antivirus as well or something that does a quick scan at bootup, those are also much slower on Vista.
I have a gateway with an amd dual core 3 ghz processor. Also have 3 gigs of ddr2 ram. This has Vista home premium. Have had for a couple months, been really happy. Just put in great video card. Anyways, it boots from completely off to running anything I want in under a minute. Vista does hog resources more than xp, but if you have decent resources it is great. The only complaint I have is how few programs work well or at all with Vista after it has been out in beta or final versions for a long time now. Overall I think it depends highly on the machine. I would definately run xp if you have under 2 gigs of ram and I would also draw the line on a processor of about 2.2 or 2.4 ghz if you want speed. I know even though my vista is really fast, it is due to the computer. If I put xp on here it would be even faster obviously. Also if you have the option of 2 computers, make sure you have 1 xp due to the program incompatibility issue. ---- Also Richard that says it takes 7 min to shut down has some kind of major problem with the computer, maybe infected, or not enough resources, or too many programs running..It definately shouldn't take that long. Joe is right on that. Mine shuts down in around 45 seconds.
on my machine it seams that Vista does boot much slower like everyone else is saying. i have an older PC which i now have Vista running on. with xp it took about 10 seconds or so to get to the log on screan....now with vista about 2 and a half minutes or so...then after the log on with xp it was maybe another 5 seconds depending on what i had starting up...now with vista....like another 3 minutes!! so a it takes me around 4 to 5 minutes with vista to be able to actually use my pc after starting it!!! kinda sad actually. my specs are a 2.53 pentium 4, 256 geforce video card and 1.5 gigs of ram.....definitely enough to handle everything but i guess just not for optimal performance...i think eventually i will just be back on good ol XP...that is till the google OS comes out like the one guy said!! :)
Vista is much slower on my Inspiron E1405. Not only does is load slower the overall functioning is much slower. Windows take more time to come up, functions such as closing windows, saving, sending to printer, etc. all take noticably longer. My Inspiron is only 6 months old and came with Vista. I am very disappointed with Vista for this reason. Do you have any suggestions?
The fact is, xp is faster and more popular than vista, in the near future when pcs have better hardware and that extra 300+ MB of ram it uses wont matter anymore and neither will the the extra couple hundrd mhx it uses on the cpu, because when we have machines that are using quad core's and 4gb ram in the mid range market, xp will just be memories of good times and vista would had its service packs etc etc and everyone will be happy. Unless of course, if google come along, or if windos 7 using the new minwin core cvomes out by its 2010 date and redeems microsoft's name once more. till then there is always xp and mac :p
I have been using an athlon 64 2.2Gz desktop with xp proffesional with 1G of ram and it boots lightning fast; faster than anything i have ever seen. i just bought a laptop with vista premium and it is a dual core athlon 64 at 2.2Gz and 2g of memory. It takes at least twice as long to boot and I have disabled almost everything in the starup menu but my essential programs. So I for one, at this point, would aggree that vista takes a lot longer to boot up than Xp proffesional.
Also, I forgot to mention that I even turned off alot of the features of Vista and it still boots terribly slow. I turned off Windows Defender, Windows Aero (all the Vista special effects), the sidebar, and many other needless things. I have twice the memory and a dual core of the exact same single core processor that I have on my XP proffesional machine. It is just plain slower. I would assume that these guys who say Vista is faster had a lot of junk on their XP machines. I have almost identical everything in programs and a clean vist machine with no files on it yet and it still is much slower to boot.
My HP laptop with XP got damaged so I bought a new laptop with Vista. I havent timed it but it takes my new computer at least 3 to 5 min to boot. Its rediculous. I definitely did not have that problem with XP.
Hi. I have a HP6510b laptop, 2.0ghz processor, 2gb RAM, VISTA Professional. No matter how I configure the OS, the boot takes 2m55sec until the system is available. Bring back Windows 2000, all is forgiven. vbr Kurt
I have laptop with vista, purchased about 1 month ago.
And I have my old laptop with xp, purchased about 2 years ago.
But my old laptop boost faster than the new one with vista.
I cannot not understand your test result.
thanks
I had an old xp computer but it screwedup just before it did it took lcose to 10 min to startup but had tons of crap on it. Friends xp system of exact same specs as my vista system takes less time to load (about 2min including a bunch of auto start apps) my one ( both are amd 64 x2 4000+ with 1gb ram takes 4min to start even though the inital vista start is quicker it takes way longer to load the rest after password
it happens in my laptop...boot and lauches slower than xp.. i used vista with tosibha laptop intel core Duo and 512 ram,, is it ok for Vista or should i change to xp?
please help me...
I just got a Dell Inpiron 1721 with Vista Home Premium. First thing I did was re-format the hard drive and re-install Vista to get rid of all the junk Dell loads on it. Inside windows was much faster. Then I installed 4gb pc2-5300 RAM in it. It runs pretty smoothly once its started up. But once at the login screen after typing in my password and pressing enter- from then it takes about 50 seconds to have it up and ready to go. My desktop (same OS) takes 15 seconds. Given the desktop is a AMD Dual Core 2.6ghz and the laptop is Dual Core 1.8ghz... but still, should it take THAT long to load Windows??
I've seen mixed results with Vista. I performed a completely unscientific test by rebooting each of the Vista laptops at my local Costco. Most of them were outfitted with 2GB RAM and 160GB 5300rpm hard drives. All of them took about 1 minute to reach the login screen. This closely matches the boot times of a a clean install of Vista on my 2.16Ghz Core 2 laptop. However, for some reason, one of the Costco laptops consistently rebooted in about 40 seconds. It was the lowest spec'd laptop equipped with 1GB RAM, a smaller HD, and a slower core 2 cpu. Weird.
For me, XP on a 2.4GHz with 2.5GB RAM and hardly anything on startup took a while to start and shutdown (unless it was a clean install without Windows Updates). Vista on a 2.6GHz dual core with 2GB RAM starts up and shuts down much faster with the same amount of programs running in the background. Aero is also enabled and everything loads faster on the screen than it would in XP.
I wasn't thrilled about a new computer coming with Vista, but after using it, I was surprised I haven't had a bad experience like others have.
Hey i have an ACER5570 Laptop with 512RAM Intel Core Duo 1.6GHz T2300 & Intel built in graphic accelerator...and my vista basic boots at under 1 minute....vista ultimate in under 3 minutes....i have all the things enabled all the services are running and avast up all the time....plus i play games on it (Painkiller, Half-life2, UT2004, Counter-Strike S, Hitman2, GTA3,VC,SA....an more) they all run wonderful at medium quality and 1024X800 Res....and still running fine....i still wish to put in another 2GB just because i am running Image and Video editing....maybe u guys get slow start-up because of viruses and all those stuff...1 ADVICE...always make sure your Anti-virus is always up to date...and remove unwanted files...then you'll be ahead of your OS...believe me...try it and then see the result.
DanielPK
I have a brand new HP pavillion laptop purchased at Best Buy a few days ago. It has nothing downloaded on it yet, no files, no music, no games beside whatever it came with. My windows vista seems to boot slower everytime I start up. Laptop came with vista, AMD 64 AthlonX2, 2 Gigs memory and a 160 Gig hard drive. I've done practically NOTHING to it.. vista takes forever to start up just to get to my login screen.. and THEN after login it takes forever to load up my desktop. I'm staring at a blank screen for minutes! Shut down is equally as slow. My system startup has 20 programs, but all were already setup that way.. nothing i downloaded.
LOL @ at all the people comparing their old Windows XP installs to fresh Vista installs. First of all, pre-built computers these days are stuffed with MUCH more bloatware than ever before. I've looked at my friends' laptops/desktops and seen in dismay to see the tons of junk that their computers start up with because the computer manufacturer wanted more revenue. That's one reason.
Second of all, yes you do have to tweak Vista to make it as fast as XP unfortunately. Thus, all the computer-illiterate people are thinking that Vista is naturally just a slower system. However, the difference even when untweaked is not significant IF you get a good system (>$1000). If your computer can't handle it, you have to get Windows XP to get good speed compared to untweaked Vista.
my dell inspiron 1501 screen goes blank while working on internet. Will not come back unless I reboot. What is the problem?
Comparing with a dual boot on the following hardware:
A Dell Inspiron 1501
160Gb SATA Harddrive
2 GHz Processor
2 Gb of DDR2 SD RAM
256Mb shared integrated graphics
Operating systems
Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Microsoft Windows Vista Business Edition
Installed on hard disc less then a week between each other.
Xp and Vista equivalents of dell drivers installed respectively with ATI catalyst centre.
Logitech setpoint.
McAfee Security Centre.
HP Solution Centre.
I am safe to make a fair comparison.
Start up:
Xp Professional loads at least two times to three times as fast, the cpu in vista takes a while to settle, with and without sidebar running.
Once Running:
Faster to access files, internet etc in xp, however thats because the vista windows have more graphics.
McAfee Virusscan and Quickclean, significantly quicker on xp as vista takes some system resources so these programs have less when fully running.
Office 2007 integrates well with vista and starts faster (not that much faster as xp is very fast) but sometimes office 2007 starts immediately without any loading times in vista.
Shut Down:
Xp shuts down faster then vista providing nothings gone wrong.
Vista can take a good three tmes longer to shut down.
If the hardware is changed to much after switching on vista, vista will not shut down and has to be forced shut down, ie when I connect or disconnect a docking station.
Possible problems with xp when shutting down that vista does not generally exhibit or hasn't so far,
"Program x is not responding End Now Cancel"
If left alone xp will not shut down.
So to conclude xp performance is greater than vista, however for me I am having problems with my ATI graphics where the system will crash unpredictably, the latest driver from ATI for vista has stopped my problem but the xp one has not so for now I'm using vista.
greg what OS are you running on your 1501 and can you explain your symptoms and drivers a bit better?
I.e wha you doing on internet, if you leaving it be to standby etc etc.
I've noticed that my new 2 gig ram, duo centrino, vista laptop is much slower booting than my generic 3 year old, xp laptop that has only 512 ram.
My vista boot slow when it got to the part "Welcome" than it became black for about a minute... can someone help me?
on my pc e6750 4gig memory 320 new sata drive msi mother board,
Vista 64 takes 5 mins to boot, starts up vista running bar then no disk light till the 5 min mark then boots in ok, just seems to sit their doing nothing, have searched to solve the problem with no luck. any ideas to help
Yes!!! Certainly it takes twice time to boot up the system with Vista in my notebook. Recently I bought a Compaq Presario notebook of Intel Core 2 Duo with free DOS, and installed XP. It performed everything superb like an active leopard. But alas!!! when I upgraded to Vista it became unexpectedly as slower as a snail...also gets always hanged or stuck up in time of running a program. I don't bother on booting up, but I bother on its usage and performance ability which is damn slower than XP. It has nothing special than XP, just only Microsoft added some new features and changed its appearance. Nothing more!!!
I have used vista on several Dell 1505 and 6400. Also on a t60 and t61. 5 to 8 min from power switch on to useful desktop. The fastest machine booting to Vista is my Apple MacBook Pro via boot camp. Go figure.
My dell laptop (2.2ghz 2gb ram) takes nearly 10mins to boot with vista, does anyone know how to speed it up?
I was looking around the internet for a possible answer to my question. I've been having a problem with my Dell Inspiron 1501 Notebook. Ever since I started using it , several times a day
the screen goes black or has dark blue lines. I have no alternative
but to reboot it. I can't figure it out. I never heard of this before. Since it has Vista I thought it was the cause. Can you tell me what I can do to stop this from happening? I really don't think it could be the Vista. It doesn't do it as often as it used to. HELP!
My brand new Vista machine that has a dual core 2.0ghz processor speed boots way slower than my older, 3mhz desktop...painfully slower. I've tried everything I know to clean it up, but it's ridiculously slow.
on a hp dv2610 with turion x2 and nividia 7150 go xp boots faster then xp .. far faster timing everything to start up and it to be running smooth it takes over 5 mins on vista ultimate 64bit and xp 64bit is barely 3 mins
Vista just sucks. Seriously. It's so bad I moved to Linux 5 minutes later.
It takes about 5 minutes to boot, and about 3 times that to shutdown again. My Macbook boots in about 20-30 seconds and shuts down almost instantly.
My specs:
1.8Ghz Core Duo.
1GB RAM.
My Mac's specs:
2.16Ghz Core 2 Duo (from what I've heard, the core 2 doesn't make a massive difference)
1GB RAM.
I have 2 computers, here are specs.
1 - PC
XP SP2
Age 6 Years old, with some modernized components.
CPU Intel Pentium 4 2 GHz
512 Mb memory
7200 rpm Western Digital caviar eide hdd
BIOS boot - 4 sec.
XP boot - 28 sec
Desktop load - 20
Total - 52 sec
2 - Laptop
Age - 256 RAM).
The amount of time it takes to get to a login is irrelevant. The amount of time it takes for a system to become usable; i.e. to start an email client, or establish a broadband connection IS relevant. I have a new HP laptop, w/Centrino duo, 3GB RAM, and it is terribly slow to boot up and allow me to do anything. XP is increadibly fast as compared to Vista. It seems you/MSoft use the same type of success criteria for the speed-to-boot test as airlines when stating % ontime departure; if they leave the gate within 10 minutes of schedule, they're ontime, even though they may spend 60 minutes on the tarmac.
definetaly not in dozens of comparisons i tried,unless xp is not configured correctly,has abundance of bloatware etc consistent with factory prepared laptops,conversely on a decent loaded xp system(without the bloatware garbage) a p4 2.8ghz northwood powered dell 5100 laptop clean boots into xp pro desktop around 10 seconds,with only 512mb ram and 5.4k hdd!
thats over 2.5 times faster from what i deem as about as fast as vista boot times will ever get (good job with ye vista)however theres have a severe problem with ye xp boot times,a thinkpad p111 650mghz can boot in xp under 25 seconds+vista in about 48 seconds with 512 ram.
My PC Specs:
Core2Quad 6600 @ 2.4GHz
2x2gb of Corsair DHX2 PC2-6400 RAM
ASUS ATi HD3870 Graphic Card
1 x LG DVD Writer SATA2
1 x 250gb Maxtor IDE HDD (Windows XP Pro)
1 x 320gb Seagate SATAII HDD (Vista Ultimate)
2 x 500gb Seagate SATAII HDD
Cold boot - Bios takes 5 seconds to reach Windows selection screen
XP Windows loading - 25 Secs
XP Windows login to Desktop - 5 secs
Vista Windows loading - a minute or two
Vista Windows Login to Desktop - 10 minutes or more
Let's not mention all the other flavors of Linux I have. Windows never had a speed advantage.
Vista boots unbelievably slowly on my HP Pavilion.
And after entering my password, it also logs on unbelievably slowly.
Like... two cups of coffee slowly.
It's a phenomenal painintheass.