[HN Gopher] Did Windows 10 slow down with each feature update?
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Did Windows 10 slow down with each feature update?
Author : pcr910303
Score : 181 points
Date : 2021-06-21 17:58 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ntdotdev.wordpress.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (ntdotdev.wordpress.com)
| antiterra wrote:
| Any chance some of this could be due to sidechannel exploit
| mitigation? The timing seems about right.
| Arcuru wrote:
| Almost certainly. Several of the worst benchmarks (Win32 App
| launch, UWP App launch, and Explorer stress test) all start
| increasing in the 2018 H1/H2 releases. That matches the
| timeline for the Spectre/Meltdown fixes, and those are the
| benchmarks that I'd expect would be most effected.
|
| 17134 = 2018 H1 (1803)
|
| 17763 = 2018 H2 (1809)
| moistbar wrote:
| 1809 is the first build that shipped with the mitigations, so
| that explains why there are a lot of performance problems
| around that time.
| [deleted]
| brudgers wrote:
| Some remarks:
|
| _I used Hyper-V as the hypervisor of choice_
|
| That is not how most end user installations are configured (aka,
| not as a virtual machine).
|
| _32GB fixed disk for each build._
|
| That is much much less than the typical Windows 10 hardware.
|
| _the fast boot feature has been disabled for the purposes of
| this measurement._
|
| That is not the default and not reflective of most installations.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| > That is not how most end user installations are configured
| (aka, not as a virtual machine).
|
| Though not the default, Microsoft is moving more and more
| towards hypervisor-based security, for both kernel stuff and
| for browser stuff. Right now you need to enable it, but I
| wouldn't be surprised if Windows 11 relies on it. The leaked
| installer already relies on having a TPM, after all.
|
| Out of all virtual machine technologies, Hyper-V is probably
| the one that will give Microsoft the best chances at being
| near-metal without passing through hardware. Other hypervisors
| shouldn't pose a problem, but they're not under Microsoft's
| control.
|
| If you have the time and hardware, you should feel free to test
| this on actual hardware instead; I doubt the results will
| differ much, though.
| jaywalk wrote:
| > Though not the default, Microsoft is moving more and more
| towards hypervisor-based security
|
| So what? That doesn't change the fact that running these
| tests in a VM isn't going to be the same as running them on
| bare metal.
| nycdotnet wrote:
| 4 GB RAM seems impossibly tight as well. I'm not sure if 4 core
| and 4 GB was ever a common or representative setup for PCs;
| perhaps 2 core and 4 GB in the Vista timeframe...
| einr wrote:
| There were plenty of Core 2 Quads and Phenom X4's with 4 GB
| RAM around 2009.
| fuzzy2 wrote:
| Would be interesting how much worse it is if you upgrade in-
| place. Or is that what this test did?
|
| Overlaying SPECTRE etc. mitigations could also provide some
| insight.
| sharms wrote:
| Disappointed I didn't see fairly reasonable explanations around
| processor security bugs which impact broad system performance
| such as Spectre and Meltdown.
|
| This has a significant impact on Linux and Microsoft has even
| outlined that these fixes impact their performance (there have
| been many more security bugs identified since):
| https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2018/01/09/understan...
| koheripbal wrote:
| What I find most disappointing is that even processors
| manufactured TODAY contain these flaws and have performance
| hits put into the firmware.
|
| This issue is so fundamental to how CPU caches work, that there
| really is not a true performance-neutral fix.
| boba7 wrote:
| 150MB word document works fine on Office 2010 but it hangs
| Office365 desktop word. What the hell Microsoft? I had to use
| LibreOffice to edit a word document created in your Word!
| AlfeG wrote:
| I'm not sure why they tested with disabled fast boot option? Why
| not disable every feature of system?
|
| Fast boot from powerdown is the reason why I stop using other
| power down states. Just shut system down, and boot it up in 10-15
| seconds.
| vxNsr wrote:
| Because fastboot turns shutdown into something closer to
| hibernation, vs the shutdowns of yore. The author was trying to
| test a true cold-state, startup, vs what Microsoft claims is a
| start up, but isn't really.
| rsynnott wrote:
| I'd wonder what processor they used; mitigations for Spectre and
| friends could be a contributor.
| DoctorOW wrote:
| > "Each version was clean installed."
|
| This might have been hard to recreate but I feel like some of the
| association with updates making things slower is the updating
| process itself. I was always told when a new Windows version came
| out that the advice was to back up files manually and clean
| install every time. I'd love to see a comparison between the
| statistics you have for clean installs and those done through the
| Windows Installer "Upgrade" path.
| nmstoker wrote:
| These speed issues are annoying but the thing that kills my
| experience is the lost clicks - and when one is missed, because
| it's quite common that Windows is just being its usual useless
| self, you then don't know for sure if it really missed the click
| or not. Invariably the time you think "it did miss it, try
| again", you'll click again only to find that now your slow
| Windows machine is stupidly struggling to do the damn task twice!
|
| The other issue doesn't sit completely with Windows: in a
| corporate environment, there are numerous remote activities that
| get hooked up without much thought or care and it only takes an
| occasional slow response with one or two of them for Windows to
| become unusable.
| reader_mode wrote:
| I built a Windows PC after 3 years of using my 15 inch 2018 MBP
| (which is by far the worst machine I have owned considering the
| price).
|
| Windows has gone to shit, I have visual glitches in the UI using
| dark mode (even the search box on bottom left doesn't render
| correctly in dark mode until I hover it). They preinstall some
| shitty "news" bar right there on the task bar and hide disabling
| it behind a submenu of a right click on taskbar. Start menu
| search goes online by default and misdirects me because of it (I
| disabled it quickly).
|
| Using a 5k monitor and display scaling is very iffy as well
| compared to MacOS.
|
| I'm waiting on next get M1 and then I'm using the Windows box as
| a docker server I'll SSH into and maybe play some games. But
| using it as a daily driver is really underwhelming. I would use
| Linux desktop but from what I've heard HDPI scaling is even
| worse.
| rkagerer wrote:
| _Windows has gone to shit_
|
| I feel the same way and it makes me sad.
|
| I've kept a death-grip on Windows 7 in hopes there would be a
| Windows 11 one day despite all the naive "last version ever"
| messaging. Now it's been announced, and I pray it's more than
| just a paint job. My asks are simple: more stability, better
| performance, and axed telemetry.
| jamesgeck0 wrote:
| Didn't Microsoft backport telemetry into Windows 7? You've
| got several of the same privacy issues as Windows 10 without
| the security improvements.
| gred wrote:
| There are dozens of us!
| reader_mode wrote:
| If anything I suspect they will double down on adding
| internet services to the OS and double down on the app store.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| For me, every update seems to trigger some. NET compilation in
| the background (if I remember right). This process destroys your
| disk while it runs, and contributes a lot to the slowness in my
| experience.
| [deleted]
| PaulHoule wrote:
| This exactly mirrors my experience.
|
| "Starting" is slow in Windows and just keeps getting slower. That
| could be booting, logging in, waiting for an application to
| start, waiting some more for an application to start, and then
| waiting even more, not being sure if it ever is going to start,
| waiting some more, and then it starts.
| zlynx wrote:
| Not counting BIOS time it is about 5 seconds to Windows login
| on my Windows with NVMe systems. It does take about 20 seconds
| after login for it to finish loading all of the tiny startup
| notification icons, but that's actually intentional by Windows
| so it does not overload and prevent you from launching the apps
| you want. After login I can click on the web browser or email
| and it will launch instantly for me.
|
| If you are doing a lot of waiting look into getting an SSD for
| your boot drive.
|
| Or you're running some kind of corporate security product that
| is going to a remote server for "Mother, may I launch this?" on
| every EXE and DLL.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| The point is, why does OP need to spend money on an SSD (and
| create e-waste in the process) when an HDD used to be
| reasonably fast for the same task?
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I have an SSD for a boot drive on my personal and work
| computers. Both go out for lunch for long periods of time.
|
| It might be me.
|
| I know my reaction time is 35% faster than my teenage son.
| I am much more bothered by latency than other people, I'm
| starting to think that I experience more time than other
| people.
|
| I can't stand playing single-player games on a Samsung TV
| that isn't in game mode. The sloppy response drains out all
| my fun.
|
| When I was playing League of Legends on a "gaming" laptop I
| found I couldn't ever win (not feel like I was floundering,
| attacks hitting me and i couldn't do anything about, people
| avoiding my attacks 100% of the time) until I attached an
| external monitor. I took movies and could show the timer
| was 30 ms late on the internal monitor compared to the
| internal monitor.
|
| Most people seem indifferent to this sort of thing, but not
| me.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| > Most people seem indifferent to this sort of thing, but
| not me.
|
| The average person who walks into a museum will be able
| to tell you which paintings they like, and which they do
| not. An art historian, however, will be able to tell you
| _why_ they like certain paintings, and discuss specific
| details in the composition.
|
| You are like the art historian. When _you_ play a game on
| a laggy TV, you can tell that the TV 's latency is making
| the game worse. A layperson just finds the game less
| engaging, and doesn't know that it could be better, much
| less why.
| LegitShady wrote:
| hdd were never fast. the quick boot/startup times really
| started with SSDs.
| 1_player wrote:
| HDD have been slow since before Windows 10 was announced. I
| was converting friends to SSDs during the Windows 7 era. At
| least on HN I would expect technical-minded people to have
| some perspective on the speed of storage mediums and how
| _fast_ and _cheap_ solid state drives are. Yes, I said
| cheap.
|
| A crappy SSD from a good brand is PS70/TB (Samsung 860
| QVO), and it is ORDERS (plural) of magnitude faster an a
| hard disk drive.
|
| You can run whatever you want on antiquated hardware, but
| please people, stop complaining about it and get on with
| the times already.
| singingboyo wrote:
| Arguably, the issue is when the HDD isn't the only computer
| you use. If you switch to using an SSD on, say, a laptop,
| boot times are super fast, you get used to that, etc.
|
| Then you go use an HDD, and suddenly everything feels slow.
| The thing is, it's not actually slower than it was before,
| it's just slower than your most recent comparison point.
|
| If only use an HDD, though, those boot time are just the
| way it is. I never actually found it to be a large
| difference between Windows and Linux. The difference that
| really bit me was startup apps on Windows, but fresh
| installs were plenty quick.
|
| I think in a lot of ways it's like getting off a freeway
| after a while. On a regular in-city drive, the road speeds
| feel normal and reasonably quick (assuming no traffic).
| When you've just gotten off the freeway, though, you're at
| half the speed of what you've been driving at for the last
| hour or two, and it feels very slow.
| zlynx wrote:
| LOL! No, the HDD never was reasonably fast. Our
| expectations changed.
|
| I booted up an old Windows XP box about two years ago
| before recycling it. It took almost TWO MINUTES to finish
| booting to the desktop. Some kind of fairly standard 500 GB
| Western Digital Blue drive. No, I don't know if it had ever
| been defragmented or had its TEMP files cleared or had old
| driver modules removed... It was just slow.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| I just don't buy it. Sure, SSDs have always been faster--
| I remember how exciting they were when they were new--but
| HDDs were always "fine". Not fast, maybe, but nothing
| ever felt _broken_. I never waited multiple seconds to
| open a search box, for example.
|
| And more broadly... have you ever tried running Windows
| XP in a VM, on modern hardware? Even virtualized, if you
| feed it anything approaching the resources of a typical
| 2021 machine, it _absolutely flies_ compared to Windows
| 10.
| CogitoCogito wrote:
| > LOL! No, the HDD never was reasonably fast. Our
| expectations changed.
|
| If the anecdotes of this thread are to be believed, it's
| not that our expectations changed but that the software
| has changed.
| the-dude wrote:
| How is stopping these days? I seem to remember there were about
| 79 reasons why Windows might not shutdown.
| hn8788 wrote:
| The only issue I've had with stopping is when it decides to
| update, and just hangs there with a completion percentage and
| the message "This could take a while." I almost always end up
| holding down the power button because it'll sit on the same
| percentage, sometimes 100%, for hours.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| My main complaint is all the programs that think all your
| documents are so precious that they refuse to shut down.
| Reminds me of
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyOEwiQhzMI
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| that happens to coincide with the 79 ways to "power off"
| windows.
| zlynx wrote:
| I have a Windows virtual machine that was doing this to me a
| lot, and making Ubuntu reboots take a long time, and then
| requiring a disk check after the unclean shutdown.
|
| I found a registry key that tells Windows to force stop apps
| that block shutdown. I may lose an unsaved document once in a
| while but I would have lost it anyway, and I am pretty good
| about saving things when necessary.
|
| HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop AutoEndTasks REG_SZ 1
| LinuxBender wrote:
| I have an old windows machine for playing WoW _not happy with
| the Linux methods, but some day..._ and it does not have an
| SSD. I found one thing that helped was to disable a lot of the
| logging. In powershell on an administrator account:
| wevtutil el
|
| then select some or all of the logs to disable with
| wevtutil sl {logname} /e:false
|
| Another improvement since I only use it for WoW was to disable
| the spectre mitigations [1] remove some bloat with bleachbit
| [2] and then defragment the drive. Windows 10 specifically can
| be sped up a little bit by disabling some of the telemetry that
| is hidden away using O&O ShutUp10 [3] and improving network
| latency a little bit with the TCP/IP optimizer [4] as some
| startup applications rely on a response from servers. Now it
| starts up the same as when it was new. Maybe some day I will
| get a SSD. Another thing I found useful for Windows 10 was to
| disallow applications from running in the background which just
| "Suspends" applications rather than quitting. Suspending still
| takes up memory and pagefile. It's easier to see this in
| Process Explorer [5] I think they do this to mimic the behavior
| of a cell phone. Disabling suspending is less useful for
| startup time and more useful if you value your free memory.
|
| One more thing I should add that helped was to cache DNS on my
| home network.
|
| [1] - https://www.grc.com/inspectre.htm
|
| [2] - https://www.bleachbit.org/
|
| [3] - https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10
|
| [4] - https://www.speedguide.net/downloads.php
|
| [5] - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
| us/sysinternals/downloads/sysi...
| PaulHoule wrote:
| ... and you know I am always looking in the log and they are
| filled with stuff that seems irrelevant but never anything
| that explains why your computer crashed, why a service quit
| working, etc -- generally opening the event viewer seems to
| be a complete waste of time that I never get insights from.
|
| Disabling the log completely doesn't seem like a loss at all.
|
| As for the DNS I agree with that.
|
| Years ago when I first got DSL (1Mbps) I noticed that the
| browsing the web on a DSL line was slower than the dialup
| because DNS lookups took forever.
|
| Switching to a resolving DNS server was like taking a ton of
| bricks out of my car and installing a supercharger.
|
| I wonder if ISPs are just indifferent to DNS speed or if they
| see it as a form of "traffic shaping" that lowers load on
| their network.
| boba7 wrote:
| Anyone finally willing to admit that w10 is unusable on Hard
| Drives while Linux and W7 work fine on them?
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Yeah, Win10 is very drive performance dependent. You can run it
| fine on a Pentium 4, but you need an SSD.
| willis936 wrote:
| As someone who manages a fleet of 30 windows machines that
| house PCI DAQ cards: Windows 10 runs on a Pentium 4, but I
| wouldn't call it fine. All of the machines run on SSDs, which
| is a godsend, but the older machines that run pentiums
| involve a lot of waiting around to do the most basic of
| things. It doesn't help that Windows refuses to us less than
| 1.5 GB of RAM. You can forget web browsing.
| boba7 wrote:
| I gave them Lubuntu and their scanner app running in WINE.
| It worked fine but they refused to switch because "it's not
| muh windows". This is how Microsoft corrupts people for
| life...
| squarefoot wrote:
| The sad irony being that the Windows UI, starting from
| Win8, became a complete mess, far more different from say
| Win7 or even XP than any recent Linux desktop manager.
|
| Most of my users, some even over 70 with little computer
| experience, are doing fine on Linux, but I "converted"
| them before they had to experience that awful mess, so it
| has been relatively easy: from XP or Win7 to a customized
| XFCE (its defaults are ugly and unpractical) has been a
| breeze.
| ergot_vacation wrote:
| People must have very different performance requirements than
| me. I've run 10 on nothing but HDD for years now with no
| issues. Of course, I also avoid electron apps, modify Firefox
| so it doesn't eat memory like an addict on a bender, and
| generally keep bloat off my system. But Windows, basic
| Multimedia programs and games all seem to run fine. It's
| probably not cutting edge, but I don't feel like it's dragging.
| chipotle_coyote wrote:
| > modify Firefox so it doesn't eat memory like an addict on a
| bender
|
| Are these Windows-specific modifications, or tuning Firefox
| settings that might be beneficial on other platforms? (I'm
| not saying that I'm looking at the insane UI changes for the
| upcoming Safari release on the Mac and investigating other
| options, but I'm not not saying that.)
| jayd16 wrote:
| Do people still think to defrag HDDs on windows? I wonder if
| that's an issue people are seeing.
| Arainach wrote:
| You haven't needed to manually defragment hard drives in
| Windows in decades.
| [deleted]
| nullify88 wrote:
| Windows usually does it automatically as part of a
| maintenance routine. Unless you were writing and deleting
| lots of files causing fragmentation, there isnt usually much
| to gain with manual runs.
| c7DJTLrn wrote:
| I could be completely wrong, but my guess at the cause would be
| the registry. Every functionality and feature in Windows has a
| flag somewhere in the registry. Every query is probably a disk
| read, and it's a blocking operation of course. Sure, there's
| probably a cache, but that cache is only so large.
|
| There's a program that I can't recall the name of that can
| trace registry queries in the program it's attached to. You can
| attach to basically any process in Windows and see a monstrous
| number of registry queries.
| londons_explore wrote:
| The registry is plenty small enough to keep the whole thing
| in RAM
| emily-c wrote:
| A lot of critical system configuration is stored in the
| SYSTEM hive which isn't explicitly backed by a file mapping
| and is loaded at boot via firmware services so this will be
| fast as it is non-paged and mapped in kernel space for the
| entire boot session. On newer builds of Windows 10 other
| hives are memory mapped into the usermode address space of
| the minimal Registry process. Whenever you do a registry read
| the kernel will temporarily attach your thread to the
| Registry process' address space and the read to the UM mapped
| section will occur which will naturally fault in the data
| from disk. The requesting process' thread will then be
| unattached and the information will be returned. Since non-
| SYSTEM/ELAM hives are memory mapped the kernel's cache
| manager and memory manager subsystems are the ones that "own"
| and control the mapped memory. The file cache is tuned based
| on the particular system's hardware characteristics to be as
| performant as possible. There are registry-specific caches in
| between to reduce the need to attach to the Registry process
| but this isn't going to be a disk IO speed bottleneck.
|
| The program you're thinking of is procmon which is a part of
| the Sysinternals suite of tools.
| toast0 wrote:
| Yep. Windows 7 would sometimes take a few minutes to finish
| whatever boot time disk i/o it wanted to do; for Windows 10 on
| a disk, it seemed to always be doing some i/o and never settled
| down.
| 1_player wrote:
| Why do people still expect modern software to run at incredible
| speeds on hard disk drives?
|
| Run old technology with old software. It is ridiculous that
| consumer hardware is still being sold with crappy 5400 RPM
| disks in 2021. No, I have no interest in optimising my software
| for speeds that are 1/10th of my broadband.
|
| Unless we're talking archival or huge storage necessities, stop
| complaining about modern OS or games running slow on a
| technology that hasn't realistically been updated in 20 years.
|
| Do you expect Windows 10 to run on a Pentium II with 512MB RAM
| as well, because some version of Linux does?
| thrower123 wrote:
| I'm usually frustrated that I've got dozens of GB of unused
| RAM, and some horrible 32-bit app is thrashing and paging to
| disk because it's getting close to using 2 GB.
| jokoon wrote:
| I don't understand this argument, could you explain why
| modern software cannot run on old hardware?
|
| It sounds like it's justifying planned obsolescence.
| 1_player wrote:
| Can you explain why you expect modern software to run on
| old hardware first?
|
| Should I be surprised that my turn of the millennium PC
| can't even run Slack? Yes, in absolute terms it's a bit
| ridiculous, but we're not talking philosophy here, Moore's
| law is a thing and software has been getting more complex
| as hardware got faster. Deal with it.
|
| How is this news?
| zbrozek wrote:
| In a lot of cases new software isn't delivering utility
| over old software, yet consumes more resources. Users
| justifiably feel miffed that they're expected to buy new
| hardware merely to keep up.
| bionade24 wrote:
| There are Slack clients out there, which use a hundreth
| of the official one and they can run on these old
| machines, too. The problem aren't more ressource itensive
| features not possible before, but delivering a services
| we have for decades with way worse ressource usage
| because you can.
| djrogers wrote:
| > There are Slack clients out there, which use a hundreth
| of the official one and they can run on these old
| machines, too
|
| Uhh, care to share? Asking for a friend....
| Marsymars wrote:
| Maybe referring to Ripcord. I haven't used for Slack
| though, I don't know what Slack's position is on third-
| party clients - using them with Discord is liable to get
| you banned.
| windows2020 wrote:
| Modern <noun> is mostly worse than <noun>.
| Zababa wrote:
| What exactly does "modern software" does that justifies
| needing the hardware to follow at such a pace?
| beckingz wrote:
| It runs on more modern hardware.
|
| And has more adware!
| Hammershaft wrote:
| > Why do people still expect modern software to run at
| incredible speeds on hard disk drives?
|
| Modern software usually doesn't run at incredible speeds on
| an nvme drive with top of the line hardware. Modern software
| is often just slow. What can I do on a modern operating
| system today that I couldn't do on a predecessor released 20
| years ago? What justifies that Windows 10 feels slower to use
| then Windows XP while Windows 10 runs on hardware that is
| tens of thousands of times faster?
|
| Under this lens, what really defines modern software is
| slowness. Take away the advantage of orders of magnitude of
| hardware improvements and you would be left with something
| unusably slow.
| MereInterest wrote:
| Exactly. I am of the opinion that anything that was
| possible in computing 15 years ago should be perceptibly
| instant today. There are obvious exceptions such as cross-
| continent communication being limited by the speed of
| light, but as a general rule. Instead, we get software
| that's written as if Dennard scaling were still occurring.
| 1_player wrote:
| My desktop built in 2020 is perceptibly instant today.
| The slowest booting application is VSCode taking 2 whole
| seconds to start from cold.
|
| None of the figures shown in the article have any
| relevance if one has a slight knowledge of their
| operating system and are not running on decades old
| technology.
| HeckFeck wrote:
| When I was a child, I had a reverent wonder for
| technology and all it might do in the future.
| Realisations like this replaced that with a dry cynicism.
| My inner child is disappointed.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > Do you expect Windows 10 to run on a Pentium II with 512MB
| RAM as well, because some version of Linux does?
|
| ...Yes? What is it doing that wouldn't fit in those
| constraints?
| 1_player wrote:
| I do not absolutely get this obtuse question.
|
| It is not my place to justify why modern software is so
| inefficient, pointing the finger to Windows 10 in
| particular as if it's an outlier.
|
| Why are YOU using inefficient languages, heavyweight
| virtual machines, GB sized binaries, Electron and
| Javascript to write your applications? Why is your boss
| asking to add feature upon feature upon feature? There is a
| reason we're in this place, but until then, my point is,
| stop complaining everything is slow on your old PC. You
| know exactly why that is, and it is your fault as much as
| mine.
|
| It's because of us, software engineers, that everything is
| slow, so it is completely hypocritical that on HN of all
| places one has to explain that sadly to run modern software
| one needs modern hardware.
|
| We've put ourselves in this situation and now there's a lot
| of surprised Pikachu faces around, complaining about
| Windows getting slower and alt-tabbing to their day job
| writing yet another crappy Javascript abstraction layer on
| their shiny M1 MBP.
| asdff wrote:
| Where do people even pick this sort of stuff up to take
| with them into industry? Are they teaching Electron
| development now in undergrad CSE programs instead of C?
| jandrese wrote:
| My Linux box runs totally find on spinning drives. I'd like
| to upgrade but SSDs have gotten very expensive lately. A 2TB
| SSD is like $300 now.
| 1_player wrote:
| My 486 ran totally fine on 1.44MB floppy disks as well,
| what is your point?
|
| As I mentioned down thread, you can get 1TB Samsung SSDs
| right now for $80. Not the best one, still faster than a
| hard disk. NVMe are a little more expensive than that, and
| even faster. The price is not really a valid excuse.
|
| Yes, my 2TB NVMe is $300, and does sequential read/writes
| of 3,000 MB/s, which is close to 100x faster than an HDD.
| It's not space age technology, solid state storage has been
| consumer technology for 2 decades already.
| Marsymars wrote:
| > Yes, my 2TB NVMe is $300, and does sequential
| read/writes of 3,000 MB/s, which is close to 100x faster
| than an HDD.
|
| I'd highlight IOPS. A $300 SSD is about _3000x_ faster
| than an HDD.
| at-fates-hands wrote:
| >> As I mentioned down thread, you can get 1TB Samsung
| SSDs right now for $80.
|
| You ever think about the college kid who can't afford
| that price? What about the family of five living on food
| stamps who can't just pony up the money for better
| hardware? What about large swaths of the population who
| are on fixed incomes?
|
| The way software companies are going and your general
| attitude is, "Eh, this is old technology, anybody should
| be able to afford it, what's the big deal?"
|
| Totally tone deaf to the poor and people living on the
| edge and others living on a fixed income. My mother in
| law is pushing 80 and I had to build her a new PC since
| she couldn't afford to purchase a new desktop to do her
| taxes on since now our state requires you to file
| electronically and shockingly, her tax software no longer
| runs on her 8 year old desktop.
| jaywalk wrote:
| So instead of helping her learn one of the many (free)
| web-based tax applications, you built her a new computer
| to run a new (paid) version of the tax software she was
| already using? How does that even make sense?
| at-fates-hands wrote:
| She tried several of the "Free" web based tax apps, and
| always had problems with them. And yeah, I built her a PC
| that could run a current version of the software she paid
| for.
|
| It makes sense when you want to help someone to use the
| software they already paid for, instead of pointing an
| elderly person to the web and saying, "See? They have
| FREE versions, go grab one and figure it on your own!"
|
| Sorry, but that to me is kind of a callous solution
| compared to what I did.
| asdff wrote:
| On my 2012 mbp I have the OS and software running on the
| SSD in the drive bay, and a beefy hdd in the disk slot for
| storage. I set this up back when a 256gb SSD was pretty
| expensive, but maybe that sort of strategy would work for
| you now that SSD prices have gone up again, having a fast
| drive for software and the system and a big drive for
| storage.
| Leherenn wrote:
| I've had massive issues with Ubuntu on a HDD. Every time a
| big file was added to disk (like a download), the indexing
| system would run and render the whole system unusable for
| minutes (100% disk and CPU). Upgrading to an SSD solved the
| issue.
| moth-fuzz wrote:
| This has been precisely my experience. Windows 7 was fast on an
| HDD and blazing fast on a SSD. Windows 10 is unusable on an HDD
| and usable on an SSD. Still kinda sluggish, even then, for what
| it's worth.
|
| Not to mention the applications. A slow operating system that
| uses so much resources merely idling plus Applications-That-
| Are-Actually-Web-Browsers make day to day usage almost
| innavigable for someone with quick reflexes used to a Linux
| CLI.
| dangus wrote:
| Windows 7 is 12 years old now. Spinning hard drives are 100%
| dead in the consumer market.
|
| Why in the world would a modern operating system not optimize
| for SSDs?
|
| I can't think of a single reason to use a spinning drive on my
| computer. Almost every conceivable use case is better relegated
| to a separate NAS box.
|
| You can get a 1TB PCIe nvme SSD rated at 3100Mbps read speeds
| for $125. Why would I chip off an order of magnitude of
| performance to save $40?
| metalforever wrote:
| I still use them for NAS use because you get a bit of
| "notice" before the data goes down, and costs at this level
| makes spinning disks make sense.
| fredsted wrote:
| The thing is, computers with SSDs feel about as fast as
| computers were with HDDs 12 years ago. Some apps still take
| 10 seconds or more to load on brand new hardware in 2021.
| There shouldn't be any random wait times in daily usage.
|
| Sure, things have gotten more advanced, but it feels like the
| speed improvements of hardware are being used for bloat,
| rather than making computers even faster.
|
| It seems computer performance stabilizes at a level that's
| acceptable to most people, I guess because beyond that
| there's no incentive to spend resources improving something
| that's acceptable.
| jokoon wrote:
| Totally.
|
| Back in 2020, after one update, windows 10 was taking about
| 5min to boot on a thinkpad, if not more. Had to install a SSD,
| changed everything.
|
| Pretty curious to hear what kernel developer or filesystem
| developers have to say about this, because it doesn't really
| make sense to me.
|
| I can understand why something would stop working, but not to
| just become slow. In what world does a system change result in
| worse performance in certain cases?
|
| Maybe deep inside, w10 stopped using any optimization that
| allowed it to be fast on HDD, considering SSD should be the
| norm, but I fail to understand if this is choice that implies a
| difficult compromise, or if it's just laziness and negligence.
|
| Any linux dev could chime in?
| brundolf wrote:
| I've heard that modern Windows does some aggressive disk-
| caching of driver states or something (?) when you shut down,
| so that it can quickly load them when you boot again and skip
| a large part of the booting process. Obviously the intention
| is to make boot faster, but maybe on an HDD it has the
| opposite effect?
| easton wrote:
| It actually is the opposite of what you say, in that the
| Fast Boot feature of Windows 10 is basically logging you
| out then hibernating the system, which is faster on HDDs
| but slower on SSDs (or at best the same speed of a cold
| boot, but at the expense of system stability in the long
| term since NT really likes its reboots).
|
| It's really odd, because the first couple releases of
| Windows 10 were fast enough on HDDs, but post 1703 is when
| I started to really notice it.
| brudgers wrote:
| I won't disagree, or agree. If you are running spinning rust
| rather than an SSD, you are getting exactly what you chose.
| Just about any use case that justifies spinning rust can be
| solved with an external platter, thumbdrive, and/or SD card.
| mulmen wrote:
| When I upgraded from 7 to 10 I had an SSD in my machine but
| was never given an option to install 10 to the SSD. It
| requires some contortions to get physical install media and
| then start over on a new install on the SSD instead of doing
| any kind of convenient system migration.
|
| The "choice" I made was back in 2009 when I installed 7 to an
| HDD, which seems like a reasonable choice.
| brudgers wrote:
| I have never had an issue installing Windows 10 to a
| machine I upgraded to an ssd...I had hell with an old Dell
| Precision workstation because of the built in RAID
| controller...but that's another story...and when I upgraded
| that machine to W7 from XP 64 bit, I bought new spinning
| rust for it. But W8 went smooth and I got W10 working by
| disabling the RAID during install (I used an SSD for boot).
|
| That machine, with dual e5405's is still in service for
| gaming at my kid's place.
|
| Physical install media for 10 is a matter of downloading an
| .exe and selecting the option for making a thumb drive as
| the installation disk and then booting from it.
|
| It's relatively straight forward but there are a few moving
| parts for sure. Typically f12 to select boot device.
|
| 2009 was a long time ago in tech terms.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Definitely. Booting up Win10 on an HDD can take up to 10
| minutes if you have Discord/Steam installed.
| criddell wrote:
| Why is that a Windows problem and not a Discord or Steam
| issue?
| smoldesu wrote:
| Well, in large part it has to do with how Windows loads
| libraries. For example, if you have two Electron apps
| running (eg. Discord and Slack), both will load separate
| libraries, effectively doubling their load on your system
| (scaling for each app you open). The solution is to enforce
| dynamic linking, like how Linux handles it. You can have
| Spotify, Discord and Slack all running on the same Electron
| library.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Aren't they using bundled/vendored versions? The OS can't
| help that; it's like Snaps on Linux.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Steam doesn't slow Debian (LXDE) at all, because the
| desktop environment doesn't require two processor cores -
| even though Steam is mostly Electon-based now.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Win10 is perfectly fine on HDDs. You just have to install Linux
| on the bare metal, and create a Win10 VM leaving at least 3GB
| of RAM to the Linux caches.
|
| This is faster than W10 on bare metal with SSD and the same
| physical amount of RAM.
| seniorThrowaway wrote:
| I have an older laptop with an hdd. It always was under powered
| but still usable for things like streaming to a tv every once
| in a while. The latest Win10 updates have it taking minutes to
| run a search or context switch. Feels like we are getting into
| phone territory of forced HW upgrades for everything now.
| boba7 wrote:
| I'm upgrading computers in my University with 8GB of ram and
| ssd and poof, 2011 computers run W10 just fine once again.
| asdff wrote:
| I did this to all my family members macbook pros a few
| years ago, back when apple let you do that sort of thing to
| your hardware. These machines are 10 years old and still
| running modern stuff just fine.
| smhenderson wrote:
| This was my experience as well updating computers at a
| company I recently joined. Changing to an SSD had the most
| impact, although a lot of these machines already had 8GB of
| RAM. There are still a handful around that now have an SSD
| but still 4GB of RAM they came with; these are also better
| now, usable anyway.
| at-fates-hands wrote:
| My company did the same thing a while back. I remember
| two years ago having to get in the office at least 20
| minutes before my z book laptop would fully boot.
|
| They upgraded all the developer grade laptops with 32GB
| of RAM and SSD's. Still take a good 5-8 mins to boot, but
| compared to where they were? Light years better!
| afrcnc wrote:
| Yes.
| ergot_vacation wrote:
| Over the past decade, software updates in general have mostly
| become another form of malware, as software makers care more
| about extracting money from their users or adding pointless shiny
| features than actually making their software fast, stable, or
| better able to serve the user.
|
| As a result, my default policy now is "If it ain't broke, NEVER
| fix it." Install, then disable all updates, forcibly if
| necessary. On Windows and your browser at a bare minimum, and
| probably on any other software you use often or rely on. Yes,
| there are risks and downsides to doing this: security holes won't
| be patched, bugs won't be fixed, and new features won't be
| present. But everything in life is a balance. And on balance, the
| bad of updating is almost always worse than the good is good.
| This article highlights that in brilliant neon letters. How on
| EARTH do you justify boot and reboot times doubling or tripling,
| and just about every metric getting worse over time? Why would I
| let Microsoft fuck with my system if they're going to make it
| shittier?
|
| And of course, the article leaves out the worst part. Never mind
| gradual performance drops, there's a good chance that update you
| just downloaded just broke something. Entirely. Something you
| NEED to work. When is a fix coming? Anyone's guess.
|
| Install Windows 10 LTSB. It's the only one worth using. And
| unless you NEED a new feature or bugfix, never EVER update.
| christofosho wrote:
| I understand that it sucks to deal with bugs that may release
| with updates. That said, "never update" is both bad and
| irresponsible advice. It is important to ensure your systems
| are up-to-date, even if you choose to lag your updates by a
| week or a month.
|
| Security is extremely important and in some cases can save your
| personal information and money from being needlessly stolen.
|
| I can empathize with the slow downs, bugs and deprecation that
| may occur, but I can never agree that to never update is a good
| alternative.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| I used to find new technology to be exciting. Now, new
| technology (speaking about more than just software here--
| appliances, cars, etc) causes me to instinctively respond with
| "What features, capabilities, ownership models, etc, are being
| taken away from me with this new thing?"
|
| I assume it's a function of my getting older (44), to a large
| extent. It can't all be about me getting older, though. I can't
| be alone in thinking that a substantial portion of "advances"
| in existing technology have been for the benefit of
| manufacturers rather than owners. Surely "normal" people are
| starting to notice this too.
|
| Edit:
|
| I also think: "What capabilities that I already had are going
| to be sold as an add-on or, more likely, rented back to me on a
| recurring subscription?"
|
| A close second is: "Will the thing be usable when the company
| goes bust and takes their 'cloud' infrastructure with them? Or
| how about when they decide not to update their thick-client
| mobile device app for new device OS's?"
|
| A third is usually: "How will this new thing spy on me?"
| satellite2 wrote:
| I've been the same since Android removed phone recording
| capabilities.
|
| Internet feels slower each year and the screen space
| dedicated to content and not ads or popups shrinks every day.
|
| It's like in Idiocracy where the guy has a huge screen but
| maybe a tenth of is for the content.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| I'd forgotten that TV UI from Idiocracy. Now that I see it
| it certainly does seem a bit prescient:
| https://scifiinterfaces.com/idiocracy-tv/
|
| (Then again, sadly, a lot of that movie seems prescient...)
| bruce343434 wrote:
| I'm young (20) and I already have this negative view. I used
| to be excited about how fast computers would be. How good
| graphics would become.
| RamRodification wrote:
| I can never relate to these posts. I always update all my stuff
| pretty much immediately when I see an update available. I run
| Windows, so I'm talking Windows Updates, browser updates,
| drivers, anything and everything. It actually gives me a
| pleasant feeling knowing I get bug fixes, security fixes, maybe
| some new feature every now and then. I'm definitely naive
| enough to hope for performance improvements rather than worry
| about performance regressions. Historically, it's extremely
| rare that an update messes something up for me.
|
| Maybe I'm not as quick to update as I think I am, giving
| vendors time to fix broken updates before I get them? I dunno.
| I'm also privileged in that I update my hardware quite often.
| Maybe that hides any worsened performance from my perception.
|
| I'm not sure if I understand your strategy correctly, but
| disabling (security) updates on Windows and browsers sounds
| like a recipe for absolute disaster. To me that sounds waaay
| more risky than any risk taken when installing (potentially
| broken) updates from MS/Mozilla/Google
| Silhouette wrote:
| _I can never relate to these posts._
|
| I can relate to them very well. I've wasted far too many
| hours cleaning up after one bad update or another. Windows
| and driver updates have been among the worst offenders. You
| could argue that the good updates might have protected me
| from malware that would have wasted even more, but I have no
| evidence to suggest this is the case.
|
| As a result, I tend to be very binary about updates now. If
| it's something that involves direct contact with remote
| systems, it gets updated almost instantly, at least if the
| update is anything security related. Browsers, email clients,
| phones, publicly accessible servers, anything like that. The
| risk of not updating promptly in that situation is too high,
| even though I've seen many adverse changes when updating
| those kinds of products too. For most other things I use, if
| it's doing its job OK already, it probably gets updated if I
| have a specific reason to want a newer version and otherwise
| gets left alone.
|
| I detest the modern trend for bundling essential updates like
| security patches together with other changes that users might
| not want, as the likes of Microsoft, Google and Apple all now
| do. Fixing a defective product is one thing. Changing it
| arbitrarily is something completely different.
| jl6 wrote:
| It's a good idea to keep updates enabled so that you get
| security patches, but it's ridiculous that you _have_ to do
| this. The industry seems to have given up on the idea of
| making finished software, so instead you get endless churn -
| the bugs and vulnerabilities are infinite because the bug
| fixes are mixed into the same update stream as new features
| which themselves come with new bugs...
| cogman10 wrote:
| And yet, I see this attitude pretty frequently in the
| software world. I too don't understand it (All my packages
| move to the latest dependencies as soon as possible). It's
| very often not the case that things won't magically start
| working after a version that breaks you. From there, it's
| just a ticking timebomb for some random CVE to come around
| making your app exploitable in all sorts of interesting ways.
|
| Yet so many software devs take the approach of "Well, this
| version works, so why do the next?".
| _trampeltier wrote:
| Even with Win10 LTSB there are updates. The last update did
| cost me 2 days of fixing my other Apps again.
| yabones wrote:
| In that case, install Debian Stable and stick to Firefox ESR.
| Nothing will ever change without warning, and you will have the
| most blissfully boring user experience.
| KronisLV wrote:
| Debian is great, personally i favour it most with either the
| LXDE or XFCE desktops - they're blissfully boring and
| functional!
|
| I would have perhaps recommended Ubuntu LTS to some folks
| previously because of the long release/support cycle (even if
| you only decide to install security updates), but i guess
| with software packages like snap infecting the OS i can no
| longer make that recommendation.
|
| Previously i would have suggested that some folks also look
| at CentOS because it's wonderfully stable and releases are
| supported for ~10 years, but i guess all of that was ended by
| Red Hat with CentOS 8. Maybe Rocky Linux will once again
| provide a stable RPM distro for free, without resorting to
| using Oracle Linux, but only time will show that.
|
| Is it just me, or have many once stable OS releases have been
| killed off in one way or another in the past decade, either
| forcing people to migrate to paid projects, forcing
| automatically updated software that cannot really be
| controlled easily (snaps) upon them, or doing other shady
| practices for no discernible reason?
|
| That said, i personally also only update software (like
| Nextcloud, GitLab, OpenProject etc.) manually between larger
| releases when i have made and re-checked backups of all of
| the data, before archiving the old versions and then
| migrating over a copy. I'm not sure whether i could live that
| way with OS updates or versions, though, without absolutely
| minimizing the attack surface - maybe with something like a
| locked down Alpine Linux.
|
| Either way, it feels like perhaps automatic updates that
| can't even be controlled being forced upon users are the
| inevitable future. It's nice that there's Debian, but my
| question would be: "How long before it goes the path of
| Ubuntu?"
| ncann wrote:
| I can't remember the last time I used Windows search because it's
| worse than useless - there have been multiple occasions in the
| past where it can't even find a file in the current folder right
| in front of my eyes. Nowadays I just use Everything which I think
| is one of the best piece of software ever.
| windowclenaer wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_(software)
|
| https://www.voidtools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=590
|
| This is closed source software (Freeware) as far as I can tell.
| I realize you're already on MS Windows, but downloading a
| binary blob from some third party that's reading all files on
| your system seems a little too trusting.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| Voidtools is well known and really good.
|
| I've been using them for years now.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Everything has become ubiquitous enough over the many years
| to be completely trustworthy for most Windows sysadmins.
| Additionally, I agree with OP that it's one of the best
| pieces of software ever.
| sys_64738 wrote:
| Thanks. Hadn't heard of this before.
| leoncaet wrote:
| I can't live without Everything!
| RandyRanderson wrote:
| https://www.voidtools.com/
| [deleted]
| KineticLensman wrote:
| Concur - 'Everything' is one of the first tools I install on
| a fresh PC. Blazingly fast file-system search with many
| useful options
| mszcz wrote:
| Yep. One of very few pieces of software that when it runs I
| swear I can actually hear the zillions of transistors in
| the CPU doing their job. Unlike an Electron app that tasks
| 16 cores with endless fucking apologizing for their
| creator's love of layers upon fucking layers of
| abstraction...
|
| Sorry, my PC's acting slow today, I'm tired and had a glass
| of wine already :P
| rkagerer wrote:
| FileLocator Pro is another nice one. It's handled my Ctrl+F
| hotkey ever since the early days of Win7. Doesn't index, but
| uses techniques that quickly scan the MFT.
| edgeform wrote:
| FileLocator Pro for me (there's a free personal version). Been
| on that since Windows 7 quite frankly.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| For me Windows Explorer search became useful when I learned
| about its syntax. I can't remember it exactly right now, but I
| think it's something like `name:*.jpg` for example (and worst
| thing is it's localized, so you have to use whatever Windows
| Language you use). This way it does not try to be smart and
| just searches for file names. I think that in default mode it
| searches inside an indexed files or something like that, which
| probably is useful for ordinary users trying to search inside
| theirs docs.
| Philip-J-Fry wrote:
| Advanced Query Syntax https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
| us/windows/win32/lwef/-search-...
|
| Quite useful
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| One of the things I miss most from Windows is the CHM help
| system. Now selecting Help in the menu opens a web page in
| Edge regardless of your default browser, or in an awkward,
| sluggish help minibrowser app.
|
| The query syntax should be available offline right in the
| operating system, not in a web page.
| jandrese wrote:
| I also like how it can make a machine unusable for like an hour
| after an update while it rebuilds the indexes. I have some
| laptops where it will take upwards of 45 minutes to log in
| after a patch. Windows 10 really hates slow spinning HDDs, and
| these are machines with plenty of memory (8GB) to avoid paging.
| tjoff wrote:
| Haven't used Everything but I am very happy with locate32
| https://locate32.cogit.net/
| mcbishop wrote:
| fman is another rad File Explorer alternative.
| ergot_vacation wrote:
| Found Everything back in the Windows 7 days and have never used
| anything else. It still amazes me that a silly little freeware
| search outperforms what Windows has. Really goes to show
| Microsoft's utter contempt (or apathy) toward the user.
|
| Technically though, there is still a use for Windows search on
| the start menu: pulling up Windows components like the Control
| Panel or Disk Manger quickly.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| > Technically though, there is still a use for Windows search
| on the start menu: pulling up Windows components like the
| Control Panel or Disk Manger quickly.
|
| And not even that since some times typing "Panel" will not
| find Control Panel or "Power" not find "Dell Power Manager".
| I am baffled as to what is the actual algorithm behind this
| "search". I am quite sure it is not an indexing problem as
| searching the same items by prefix usually works.
|
| And as usual when it fails to find what you were looking for,
| you are just one Enter key away from being sent to a browser
| and Bing. Way to raise your ratings...
| brundolf wrote:
| An important thing that it took me a long time to realize is it
| doesn't search file names by default, only file contents. To
| search by name you have to use the 'name:' prefix. This is
| nonsense, but it's also easy to overcome once you know about
| it.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Honestly interested how this plays with Control Panel,
| various config screens / apps, etc.
|
| It seems the worst offender of "type in exactly what the link
| / window header is titled, does not show up in results."
|
| I haven't figured out if this stuff just isn't indexed, is
| de-ranked below everything else (my guess), or is using some
| weird non-user-visible tags that aren't named identically.
| ncann wrote:
| Wow really? I never knew that. Who thought it would be a good
| idea to have the Explorer search NOT do filename search by
| default?
| brundolf wrote:
| It's probably how the first iteration worked before anybody
| knew what would and wouldn't be intuitive for this kind of
| utility, and they just haven't updated it since
| yhoneycomb wrote:
| Also when files were mostly just text, it would have made
| a lot of sense
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| No, this search was new in Vista (iirc).
| brundolf wrote:
| Oh, well then there you go ;)
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| what? ridiculous, of course it searches filenames
| freedomben wrote:
| Off topic, but is Google Drive search this way too?
| gentleman11 wrote:
| Slightly off topic, but I ditched windows explorer for most
| things years ago. I've been using a neat indie app I found
| called fman. Not affiliated, just a fan
|
| https://fman.io/
| temp8964 wrote:
| I use Q-Dir, a quad-pane file explorer.
| http://www.softwareok.com/?seite=Freeware/Q-Dir
| Shadonototro wrote:
| windows 10 is what happen when you let clueless people work on an
| OS
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| At what point does Windows 10 cross into what people would
| generally call "unstable software" and call Microsoft's
| classification of "stable release" as being way too low a bar?
| smoldesu wrote:
| One time Windows got a "feature update" that made it not boot.
| Apparently it was an issue with Lenovo motherboards that is still
| not fixed to this day (afaik). In any case, that was the kick in
| the pants I needed to switch to Linux. Everything has gone
| swimmingly since!
| asciimov wrote:
| Just wait, one day you will have an update to linux and
| suddenly your whole system wont boot. This doesn't happen
| often, I've only had it happen 2 or 3 times in 10 years. It is
| good practice to have a restore thumbdrive around ready to go
| just in case.
| bruce343434 wrote:
| The amount of times that my manjaro installation broke itself
| after a "full" system upgrade lacked appropriate gpu driver
| updates... From an OS that supposedly uses upstream Arch
| repos as a sort of guinea pig and waits until the dust
| settles upstream to roll out the updates. After a while it
| gets old to have to press shift and advanced-boot-options my
| way into the older kernel.
|
| Both Windows and Linux are not perfect. With windows it feels
| like you have to fight to keep control over your computer.
| With linux it feels like you have to fight virtual
| poltergeists.
| citrusybread wrote:
| you can't possibly compare Manjaro to Windows.
|
| Manjaro is a rolling release distribution!! What do you
| think will happen under this model? It's the same issues as
| Arch and Gentoo.
|
| Consider Debian instead, where upgrading is always viable
| but doesn't just happen randomly. My current Debian install
| dates back to _etch_ when it was frozen to hit stable.
| Years later I'm on testing for bullseye, on newer hardware,
| and everything is fine. Never any issues upgrading from
| stable to stable, only went to testing because I started
| needing newer libs for my GPU.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Debian (LXDE) is, I find, dependable. Sure, it might have a
| Python version last updated in January, and my dodgy WiFi
| card might need restarting most mornings, and I might have
| to run `pulseaudio -k` when the sound starts getting laggy,
| but it just doesn't break. (I expect restarting my computer
| more often than yearly might help some.)
|
| The only Debian issue I've had is needing to delete the
| Intel graphics drivers to get Vulkan working. (Yes, delete;
| it doesn't need them on my machine, despite having an Intel
| card.) Nothing else has ever broken.
| TheCapn wrote:
| Same thing that gave me the kick to go over to Linux.
| Unfortunately I had a no-boot issue updating Fedora last week
| and had to do a complete re-install... at least I'm not paying
| for Fedora.
| juniperplant wrote:
| May I ask which distro?
| smoldesu wrote:
| I've been using Manjaro for the past 2 years. I used KDE for
| the first 6 months, but ended up switching to Gnome for the
| rest.
| TheCapn wrote:
| Not OP, but I went to Ubuntu at first, but since it didn't
| like my Lenovo Yoga's tablet mode and screen rotation I gave
| up fighting it and went to Fedora. Works perfect out of box,
| I only had to change a few personal preferences to get it how
| I like it (changing touchpad so tap-to-click works, and using
| two finger tap for right click instead of lower right)
| vbezhenar wrote:
| On my new laptop Windows drivers were unstable (I tried both
| default Windows drivers and manufacturer's drivers). My audio
| was working for few hours and then disappear until reboot. I
| tried latest Fedora Linux and it's stable so far, no driver
| issues at all. I was pleasantly surprised.
| boba7 wrote:
| >0.3 MB/s read/write to brand new HDD on W10 >Disk usage 100%
|
| It's a conspiracy.
| ggregoire wrote:
| My up-to-date Windows 10 on a 3 years old desktop takes 9 seconds
| to boot (I just benchmarked it). I don't remember it being way
| faster before.
|
| So I wonder how OP gets 34 seconds, and how he went from 13 to 34
| seconds over a couple of updates. Mine definitely didn't get 21
| seconds slower.
| tpxl wrote:
| What hardware are you running? OP was running a virtual machine
| with "4GB of RAM, 4 cores and a 32GB fixed disk for each
| build".
|
| I do wonder how if they only did one run per test or multiple,
| since n=1 will mean noise can mess with your results.
| haunter wrote:
| On my current gaming PC (i7-7700) I have installed W10 in 2017
| and... no problem whatsoever? SSD, 10s boot. idk how do people
| end up with all the problems. I'm really curious because there
| must be an underlying reason
| vbezhenar wrote:
| In my experience it depends on drivers. I bought a PC, I think
| it was 2017 too. Nvidia drivers were unstable and I was getting
| BSoD every few days. But at some point they fixed it. It was
| quite stable since then, no issues either.
|
| That said, I'm trying to be careful to my Windows setup,
| avoiding installing anything that could tinker with kernel or
| deep OS integration. Basically it's clean Windows with simple
| software, no antiviruses, firewalls, registry cleaners, etc.
| May be it's getting slower with time, but it's barely
| noticeable.
| LarryDarrell wrote:
| I think the Startup Processes really gets abused and people
| default to blame Windows for it. My time to a usable desktop
| seemed slow until I removed Teams, Steam, Dropbox and some
| other update utilities from Startup. Now it's pretty much
| instant.
| sumtechguy wrote:
| I keep mine startup fairly clean and this is key to a 'fast
| startup'. There are about 10 different ways applications can
| auto start in windows and you have too check them all, as all
| will be used. My laptop from 2012 is 10-30 seconds. My laptop
| from last year is usually under 10. My NUC from 2011 is about
| 30 seconds and has been consistently that for the time I have
| owned it. Also on older computers check to see if it is
| thermal throttling. As the fans/paste can stop being
| effective and just need to be cleaned up after some time.
|
| My parents bought this rubish computer about 3 years ago it
| is easily 3-5 mins to startup. Which is due to a lack of RAM
| (3GB, which should be plenty) and windows swapping to
| startup. Plus a bunch of startup apps they 'just can not live
| without'. I remove them, and get 'wow the computer is so much
| faster'. Few months later and some update to that 'must have'
| app will put itself back into the startup (sigh).
| N00bN00b wrote:
| I've been using hibernate for years now. I start my computer
| once per month. I really wouldn't care if it takes 5 minutes.
|
| I'm not sure why that isn't shown by default anymore. But you
| can still add it to the menu and map it to the power button.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| It isn't shown because on 10 "power off" _is_ a lightly-
| tweaked hibernate.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| Yes. All of those. I also disable the various iTunes and
| Creative Cloud 'helpers'
| [deleted]
| TheCapn wrote:
| Sometimes it isn't all that simple.
|
| My work laptop runs W10. At some point in the last 3 months or
| so, an update came in and fucked up Windows Explorer. About 5
| times in a work day I need to use Task Manager to reboot
| Windows Explorer because the following things stop working:
|
| - Cannot type into the start menu (the entire menu goes black.
| If I backspace anything I typed -despite not being able to see
| it- it will work again) - I can do this _once_ , and then
| typing doesn't work at all.
|
| - Taskbar will not hide behind full screen apps, clicking on
| icons will not bring the app to the forefront, I need to
| minimize all screens in front of it until I can find it
|
| - Cannot view/change my wifi. The list just sits there blank,
| refreshing infinitely.
|
| Likely unrelated, but at the same time, Windows randomly stops
| being able to reach by Default Gateway. I can disable/re-enable
| wifi and it works, but it tends to happen over and over until i
| reboot once it starts happening. Usually good for a couple days
| after a reboot.
|
| Lastly, on shutdown, the computer will bluescreen if I have had
| my external SSD plugged in at any point.
|
| I haven't tweaked anything Windows Related anywhere. The only
| excuse I can come up with is one of the dozens of apps I use
| for my job conflicts with Windows somewhere. There's no useful
| log info during/after the points of issue. There's nothing in
| the scans for `sfc`, nothing comes up in the system
| troubleshooters. At this point I'm looking at doing a full re-
| install of Windows, but I have so much stuff to move across
| that I'm mostly dreading it.
|
| My personal computer runs fine though...
| kevinskii wrote:
| Great question. I'm wondering the same thing. I also built a PC
| in 2017 and installed Windows 10 on it. It initially had a 7s
| boot time following bios startup. Several updates later, the
| boot time is now close to a minute and app startup times are
| noticeably slower as well. I've always been very careful about
| what software I install on it. I've done all of the standard
| troubleshooting, but so far it hasn't gotten bad enough to
| warrant a fresh install.
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| Task Manager - "Start up" tab
|
| Disable everything and see if it boots faster.
| kevinskii wrote:
| Thanks, that was the first thing I tried. I didn't want to
| go into great detail about my troubleshooting efforts
| because I don't think it's quite relevant to the overall
| discussion.
| asdff wrote:
| Well you do have a beefy workstation with a fast drive, most
| people on windows are running some anemic laptop or the
| cheapest dell desktop their employer is able to order by the
| pallet.
| brudgers wrote:
| In part, the way the author does. Turning off sensible default
| like fast booting and layering on complexity for the sake of
| complexity like Hyper-V.
|
| The desire to criticize Windows also helps...I mean the boot
| time for my iPhone is much much worse than anything the author
| measured. My upgrade times are probably at least as bad,too.
| And Siri search requires an internet connect.
| k12sosse wrote:
| I think people just don't know how to be good computer users..
| they might be able to program their way out of a paper bag but
| systems admin is not their paper bag
| beckingz wrote:
| The first time I installed Windows 7 on an SSD it started in
| less than a second.
|
| Less than 1s boot time. To desktop.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| I find that hard to believe, but back when Windows 8 was new
| (not that I'd heard of it), I think I would've believed it.
| You enabled auto-login.
| siproprio wrote:
| So... UWP is a tenbagger: It got 10x slower in 5 years.
|
| I always like to remind folks that it takes longer to open
| calculator - or windows terminal - than to open excel.
| _trampeltier wrote:
| Special since the last update, calc does need a long long time,
| even on a fast notebook. An app like calc should be open just
| instant. Even just a second is way to long on fast and modern
| hardware.
| Ashanmaril wrote:
| I built my mom a moderate Windows PC for her accounting work a
| few years ago. Pretty standard Intel build, no graphics card
| cause it's not like she needs that.
|
| And for the most part it works fine, until every few months it'll
| slow down to an unusably slow crawl and I'll have to hop into
| task manager, see what rogue Windows service is bugging out this
| time, Google it, and find some forum post somewhere telling me
| what registry edit I have to do to disable some service that
| restores it to full speed.
| swiley wrote:
| IME windows takes more work to administrate than many Linux
| distros at this point.
| mhh__ wrote:
| It may require less _administration_ but what administration
| you do have to do takes much longer in my experience - some
| Linux things are arcane, but much isn 't, but when you get to
| things Microsoft don't really want you to play with you're on
| your own
| mszcz wrote:
| For me, what makes Linux a better administration experience
| is the ability to backup and move configuration. In Linux
| it's all files. In Windows? Who knows. It's registry
| entries, files spread across hidden directories and god
| knows what.
| qalmakka wrote:
| True that. On Linux _at least_ you almost always have a way
| out of issues, because you can pretty much forcefully change,
| update or modify everything. Windows has too much "magic"
| nobody outside of Redmond, WA truly understands, so when
| things go south you can only hope that it can fix itself, or
| it's a goner.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| MSCompatTelRunner.exe
|
| I've killed as much telemetry as I can, but every time my PC
| loses a core or two to a random background service, it's that
| piece of shit.
|
| No matter how much you purge it, it comes back. Removing
| execution permissions seems to work best, because Windows still
| realises that the file is there, but eventually it'll have its
| ACLs restored and the shitshow starts again.
| jdlyga wrote:
| How much of the slowdown has to do with the Spectre and Meltdown
| mitigations? There was a similar thread the other day about
| drastic performance hits on the Linux side.
| moistbar wrote:
| All of the major slowdowns seem to pop up in build 1809, which is
| where the first Spectre/Meltdown mitigations were introduced,
| which is to be expected.
| gbertasius wrote:
| I'm still on an 2nd gen i5 with 12gb of ram. Haven't noticed any
| slowdowns even with the huge amount of processes in the
| background. I've been updating regularly and have enjoyed Win10
| for years.
| ziml77 wrote:
| The spike in there is really weird. I'm wonder if that's spectre
| mitigations causing the bulk of the slowdown. If that's the case
| I'd be curious to know if disabling them helps and if popular
| Linux distributions show similar performance loss.
| Zababa wrote:
| I would be curious to see a "windows picture" or something test.
| I don't remember the name but the default app for opening images
| in windows 10 is so slow that it feels like a joke.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| To me, Windows 10 feels like it's getting faster. I've noticed
| that updates (even major ones) complete in a "reasonable" amount
| of time (as opposed to the old Microsoft tradition of "randomly
| taking hours").
| listenallyall wrote:
| All I know is my Win 10 Pro laptop has 16gb RAM, yet if an
| application, most likely Google Chrome, uses more than about
| 4-5gb, it crashes.
|
| Yep, it's a lot of tabs. But not as many as you think, and often
| without warning, as certain ad-heavy sites, especially forum
| sites (flyertalk, rennlist), can sometimes require 1gb RAM alone.
| asdff wrote:
| All the more reason to install serious ad blockers not found
| with Chrome and to install extensions that deal with old tabs
| instead of letting them pollute your memory
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