The Most Amazing Thing You Might Have Ever Seen (sort of)

This is a screenshot I took of my machine the second it logged onto the desktop. Notice the up time in the task manager window.



What's so special about an 11 second boot? I've seen them before you may ask.


Yeah you've seen them before on a solid state drive. This computer has NO SOLID STATE!

Granted, I only have minimal stuff installed right now (c++, java, .net framework 4, flash player, chrome), so don't take this boot time as an end result, but as a promising screenshot that Windows 7/R2 can be configured to boot in a very short time.

My secret?

It all boiled down to 3 main things:

Enabling Boot Optimization
Enabling Readyboost
Switching BIOS mode to AHCI

That was it. That's all I did to achieve an 11 second boot. No other registry/services tweaks thus far. I have even updated Server 2008 R2 to SP1 so my windows updates are very far up to date!

 

it's windows server, that's quite normal there. typically all is turned to delayed starting, and most other things are just not there by default, resulting in a quite fast boot.

 

Granted there are roughly 40 services that exists on a Media enriched Windows 7 Ultimate operating system that by default is not running on Windows Server, but I found that after you configure Server to become workstation friendly your memory footprint and HDD footprint are identical. Roughly the same amount of processes, the same amount of RAM with the same amount of HDD space.

This is a Windows Server workstation with boot optimization features borrowed from 7 so its more like a hybrid server/workstation boot than a PURE Windows Server boot. Without the readyboost, superfetch and boot optimization features borrowed from 7, R2 was booting up in about 27 seconds. So the fact that I shaved 16 seconds off that by optimizing the disk is pretty sweet. I know its unconventional to run a server operating system as a workstation, but a lot of people don't even use half the crap that comes with 7 (homegroup, media center, etc) so why not just have run server so i have the added bonus of running a server and workstation all-in-one?!

 

I am not sure if the"up time" is equal to what other mention when they say "boot time" though.

 

up time I believe is the the total time the machine has been up and is not a direct representation of boot time (I may be wrong of course), press ctrl + alt + delete or run task manager and see the seconds change going higher

Edit: I was indeed wrong, the timer starts right after the bios has been loaded (and starts as soon as windows is loaded timed it using a stopwatch on my phone lol). and not after a user has logged on.

and at 11 seconds to boot a windows 2008 server is rather impressive

 

pretty sure 'up time' is after you log in to windows.

when people talk about SSDs, most of them are timing from the press of the start button.

EDIT: If i'm correct about this, SSDs can get running in 3-5 seconds with a full load in windows 7

 

Boot optimization - do you mean this? Edit: This?

Readyboost - Seemed more popular when Vista came, I don't see much comments about it these days.

AHCI - I think many newer computers already uses this.

No it's not. When I open the Task manager as fast as possible it says 28 seconds on this old HDD computer.

 

um....you just said the equivalent of nothing....

i'm not saying you're not right, but you just effectively said 'you're wrong cause i said so'

what is as 'fast as possible'? is that actually 28 seconds after you hit 'enter?

EDIT:

maybe i need to clarify.

when i say 'logged in,' i don't mean when the system becomes response. I'm referring to the instant you hit the login button after entering your account password.

 

What does logging in got to do with up time? What kind of computer takes 25 seconds to log in to (locally) anyway?

 

so, i tested on one system. pressing power button and starting timing instantly, then waiting till everything's up, and taskmanager started up. time difference between "up time" and actual timer measurement: 11 seconds. that was around the time the windows 7 logo was animating it's boot process, means up time starts around the moment one of the services starts.

 

So it was ~22 seconds on windows server. Not quite the most amazing thing I've ever seen.

 

The "up time" that you saw on my task manager window begins on Windows Server when you see this appear:



I tested it on my initial configuration and I got 11.774 seconds.
I just tested it now on my fully configured desktop and i got around 14.5 seconds.
Not too shabby.
The reason why I was using up time as a measurement was because everyone's POST time is different and thus we are ONLY identifying how long the operating system takes to load, not the entire system. I suppose you could use Boot Timer Utility but its not always accurate because it delays a few seconds before the interface appears and the boot time it tells you is never the same.

 

oh, i don't know, maybe a computer with a HDD in it?

i'm talking about the time from when you hit 'enter' till you can actually start using the system(without there being major lag due to all of the startup processes running).

 

The old computer I tried it on takes about 5 seconds from pressing enter to being usable.
AMD X2 3800, 1 GB RAM, 80 GB 5400 RPM HDD which is about to give up, Windows 7 SP1, 6 years old.

If I start the computer, wait 17 minutes, then login and PRESS ENTER, the up time is >17 minutes.
If I login immediately, the up time is <1 minute.
So, once again, what does log in have to do with up time????? You're making things up.