Josh's Windows Weblog » How Microsoft can get sustained performance gains in Windows 7

How Microsoft can get sustained performance gains in Windows 7

Recently Steven S and company have been putting out some info regarding the next version of Windows at a new blog (here) a recent post was all about how they have a dedicated team on startup performance.

Having worked with the performance team at Microsoft on some of our own performance issues what was immediate clear is they get some awesome boot time in the lab and second that this really is a failed metric for overall system performance.

Sure saying it boots in 10 seconds sounds great, but they tend to play in a pristine environment and generally only focus on Windows components and drivers that can impact suspend/resume like video.

My own performance work on Windows Vista and I would guess anyone actually using a real Windows system with actual software on it for any length of time will be aware of the phenomenon affectionately called "Win Rot".  Basically where over time you using a system tends to load tons of crap on your system and it slows to a crawl. This in my opinion is where they really need to devote some time and effort for Windows 7.

While boot performance is great to keep tabs on in development, the real delay on my systems is all the non-core software. So how do they fix this?  Well as I have said before they need to make the Windows 7 Logo program have a performance metric to it. That is the single biggest step to sustained performance for the OS. To be honest I think they would get a large amount of push back from vendors because there is a whole lot of poorly written code out there that would need to be fixed.  Even some from Microsoft themselves.

They already have a perfect set of tools to help ISV understand any performance impact they might have on a system so all they would need to do is establish some guidelines and then get us, the community, to support the effort by only loading Logo compliant applications and insisting anything that we purchase is logo compliant.

Would you be willing to only install logo compliant software if it meant knowing that your system would not take a performance hit if you stuck to just that software?

Posted Sep 05 2008, 12:42 PM by Josh Phillips Did you enjoy this article? If yes, then subscribe to our RSS 2.0 feed

Comments

Bob wrote re: How Microsoft can get sustained performance gains in Windows 7
on 09-05-2008 12:53 PM

No, I don't think I would. There are too many applications that I want/need and MSFT no longer has the clout to get 3rd pty app developers to do their bidding en masse anyway. Plus, there are some who are committed to thwarting MS on principle (Apple, Adobe, etc.).

Matt Freestone wrote re: How Microsoft can get sustained performance gains in Windows 7
on 09-05-2008 2:13 PM

Josh, excellent, excellent idea!  Seriously, the Windows Logo program should also require the apps to run as non-admin, etc, to rectify all the issues in the post XP/2003 world.  MS really should re-think their logo program and make it worth something.  I truly hope someone at MS pays attention to your post.

Fowl wrote re: How Microsoft can get sustained performance gains in Windows 7
on 09-05-2008 8:39 PM

> "the Windows Logo program should also require the apps to run as non-admin"

They do. Shows how much power they have.

While it would be great if MSFT could convince 3rd party dev's to "do the right thing" as it were, they obviously can't - so they have to be defensive and provide tools to show users where problems lie -> get their customers to realise who the problem is.

Brad wrote re: How Microsoft can get sustained performance gains in Windows 7
on 09-07-2008 9:35 AM

Well, I think the logo program could be voluntary, while still giving the customer's an option and being a selling point for ISVs.  To be fair, though, MS does say that they have testing environments that simulate "real" user systems.  But I agree that I'm not sure boot time is the main metric to focus on.  First, it's a metric that--until solid-state drives become the norm--has a physical limitation due to mechanical hard drives.  Second, slow boot time is symptomatic of other problems such as the "Win Rot" you mentioned.  Your computer starts booting slowly when you have more "stuff" on it due to increasing profile and registry sizes.  

I agree that some of the solution is better programming, such as leaner, smarter code and better un-installation programs.  Another solution could be isolation technology.  My Office apps are streamed to my laptop using the application streaming technology in Citrix XenApp.  They run locally, can be used offline and all for file-type association.  However, they run on my machine within an isolation sandbox--they are not installed and therefore do not modify system files.  To uninstall, I can simply erase the application streaming cache.  General usage performance is good--usually as good as installed apps in most cases.  Launch times are a little slower, but I just see that as a tradeoff for not having the app locally installed.

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