SPEED BOOST: Latest Windows 7 beta is faster

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Geoff Spick17 March 2009, 10:00 AM

Something felt odd having installed the latest Windows 7 beta; it took a while - but it soon clicked that the performance has gone up a notch.


Rushing towards a final test version and launch, the pit crew at Microsoft are turning around new builds of Windows 7, tightening the screws and squashing the bugs at a frantic pace. Consensus is that the latest leaked beta ramps up the performance and is the most stable yet. The firmest evidence comes from a battery of ZDNet tests that show the beta of the OS is now (unofficially) the fastest version of Windows ever.



Many users will say that Windows 7 is now the operating system that Vista should have been. More pragmatically is the fact that the new OS is still in development and being improved all the time. There are still some driver issues (that require third-party involvement) to fix, and many niggles to fix (its both funny and painful to watch some users complaining publicly about bugs when using beta software). The latest list of fixes and improvements from Microsoft developers can read on the official blog, some of the stand outs follow, showing the attention to the little things and how Microsoft is working better with partners:

5. Multi-touch zoom

One of the pieces of feedback we heard from the Beta was that customers enjoy the new multi-touch zoom feature, but wish it was supported in Windows Explorer.  In response to this feedback we have added support for the zoom gesture in Windows Explorer.  Using the zoom gesture you can switch between view modes in Explorer such as zooming from Small Icons to Extra Large icons.

13. Trimming sound schemes to help performance

We know our customers care about performance. We discovered that by just trimming the shutdown and logoff WAV files, we could save up to 400 ms. Every little bit counts.

15. Devices and Printers enhancement

PC and laptop makers such as Lenovo, were very interested in doing more than just showing the machine’s icon in Devices and Printers. They told us they wanted to leverage Device Stage to help them better customize the experience for our mutual customers. In RC double-clicking on the PC icon now offers a Device Stage UX. Like the other Device Stage devices, Device Stage for PC will be enabled when the PC maker has chosen to participate with their system.


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plutonium210 (Advanced member):

"SPEED BOOST: Latest Windows 7 beta is faster" - APC

Slowly catching up to Mac OSX then ! ;-)

17 March 2009, 11:15 AM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Your Average Joe (Cornerstone member):

Quoting plutonium210:
Slowly catching up to Mac OSX then ! ;-)

Well, until Mac's are capable of running more than Myst, I'll just stick to Windows thanks ;-)




17 March 2009, 11:31 AM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Hemma (User):

Quoting plutonium210:
Slowly catching up to Mac OSX then ! ;-)


My Mac is exclusively running Ubuntu. Even faster.

17 March 2009, 11:42 AM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Raindog (Senior Forumologist):

All done now are we? All sides have had their pointless fan-boy digs so can we discuss the topic now?

17 March 2009, 6:32 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Hemma (User):

Quoting Raindog:
All done now are we? All sides have had their pointless fan-boy digs so can we discuss the topic now?
I dunno. that depends on whether there's going to be anymore 'just work' and associated comments.



18 March 2009, 11:25 AM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

CBR1100XX (Cornerstone member):

Yep ! Call me delusional but the file transfer speeds seem to have improved markedly !

17 March 2009, 11:18 AM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Tin (Senior Forumologist):

You're delusional ;-)

Seriously though, if we're talking about the public beta release (there's only been one, right?), then it's ever so slightly faster than Vista.
But that still leaves plenty of room before it gets to be as fast as XP used to be.

17 March 2009, 11:52 AM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Jayec (User):

Quoting Tin:
"if we're talking about the public beta release, then it's ever so slightly faster than Vista..."
Public Beta is build 7000, this article refers to the leaked Build (7057)



17 March 2009, 12:14 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Your Average Joe (Cornerstone member):

The latest PCPowerplay has tested some gaming benchmarks against Vista and have not noticed any significant speed gains. Although to be fair, the graphics drivers used were only in beta stage for Win7.

I see a lot of promise even in the beta stages running in VMWare.

17 March 2009, 11:28 AM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Tin (Senior Forumologist):

Trimming startup sounds has saved 400ms... Wow!
Interestingly, this bug has been present since Windows got event sounds. Shutdown and startup sounds are played in full before moving onto the next step... Which is the real problem.

17 March 2009, 11:55 AM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

TV Bis (User):

Quoting Tin:
Shutdown and startup sounds are played in full before moving onto the next step... Which is the real problem.

Not really a problem at all. How often do you start and close your computer to really worry about how long the music takes to play?



17 March 2009, 1:17 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Tin (Senior Forumologist):

Well yeah, but if MS are trimming 400ms off, obviously someone cares about it. But the better thing to do would be fix the problem instead of trimming the symptoms.

Oh, and some people like painfully long shutdown sounds... The entire theme tune from Dr Who for example. Those are the ones that noticeable extend the shutdown time, and MS's "fix" won't help in the slightest.

17 March 2009, 11:35 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

mrguitarmann (New user):

I wish people wouldn't say the latest version of Windows was 'the fastest ever'. Put it next to Windows 2000, 98SE or even 95/3.1 and see what runs faster.

18 March 2009, 9:08 AM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

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