WinHEC: Microsoft shows off Windows 7 fundamentals

Summary: If last week was all about the eye candy coming in Windows 7, this week is more about the less glitzy but core improvements Microsoft is making to its next-generation client operating system.

If last week was all about the eye candy coming in Windows 7, this week is more about the less glitzy but core improvements Microsoft is making to its next-generation client operating system.

At the November 5 kick-off keynote at its Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in Los Angeles, Microsoft executives talked up some of the changes Microsoft is making to Windows 7 to improve its reliability, battery life, standards support and other fundamental components compared to what's available with Vista.

Jon DeVaan, the Senior Vice President in charge of Microsoft's Core Operating System Division (COSD) , wasn't shy about acknowledging some of the complaints users have had with Vista before, during and after that product launched.

DeVaan told WinHEC attendees that Microsoft is committed to delivering "reliable builds" of Windows 7 "so that when we say we're going to ship Windows 7, you'll believe us."

(As many may recall, because of the delays and the "Longhorn Reset," many OEMs, market watchers and others didn't believe Microsoft was ready to release Vista to manufacturing almost right up until the day it did so in November 2006.)

Microsoft is providing WinHEC attendees with the same "M3" (Milestone 3) pre-beta build that it gave to attendees of the Professional Developer Conference (PDC) last week.

This build dates back to September 2008. Microsoft is expecting to deliver a public beta of Windows 7 by early 2009, officials have said. (I am still hearing mid-December is the likely delivery date for this Beta.) Microsoft continues to hold fast to its "early 2010" final delivery date, though I am still hearing next year -- maybe even by mid-year -- is the real target.)

As was true last week, DeVaan and other Microsoft execs aren't yet providing even rough guidance as to how much faster Windows 7 ultimately will boot up, shut down, etc. (Earlier this year, Microsoft execs hinted that Windows 7 might boot up in under 15 seconds, but didn't officially commit to that number.)

DeVaan talked up improvements that Microsoft is making to "fundamental scenarios" with Windows 7. He called out Microsoft's goals of improving startup/boot time with 7 and showed a "boot drag race" video to show how Windows 7, even in pre-beta form, already starts up seconds faster than Vista. He said Microsoft has tweaked Windows 7 so that device drivers are loaded in parallel, instead of serially, and has reduced the number of services that load at startup to achieve these improvements. He also said Microsoft has fine-tuned 7 to reduce memory consumption, noting that video cards will be managing their own memory, rather than relying on the Windows 7 system memory management.

For laptop users, concerned with battery life, Microsoft has worked on Windows 7's kernel, tweaking the system clock, so that the CPU will be able to get to idle and stay idle longer, according to DeVaan.

Steven Sinofsky, Senior Vice President of Windows and Windows Live Engineering -- who headlined the Windows 7 debut at the PDC last week -- talked through 21 demos of Windows 7, highlighting everything from its touch support, to its ability to interact directly with sensors using a new Sensor software development kit.

Sinofsky showed off the Device Stage feature of Windows 7, which is aimed at making it easier for users to interact with the various peripherals and devices connected to their PCs.  He highlighted the impmrovements Microsoft is making to Home Group/home networking support. And Sinofsky spent a considerable amount of his keynote demonstrating that a full implementation of Windows 7 will be able to run on netbook, even as stripped down as an Asus Eee PC with 1 GB of RAM.

Sinofsky also talked up the Media Center functionality that will be part of Windows 7, noting that Microsoft is planning to touch-enable the Media Center UI, roll in the TV Pack ("Fiji") functionality and improve boot time to make Media Center PCs more like a typical living-room appliance, in terms of startup-time expectations.

Microsoft is Webcasting the WinHEC keynotes on its Web site. Tomorrow will be all about Windows Server, and specifically Windows Server 2008 R2 (Windows 7 Server).

Topics: Microsoft, Operating Systems, Software, Windows

About

Mary Jo has covered the tech industry for more than 25 years for a variety of publications and Web sites, and is a frequent guest on radio, TV and podcasts, speaking about all things Microsoft-related. She is the author of Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft plans to stay relevant in the post-Gates era (John Wiley & Sons, 2008).

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48 comments
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  • Why the obsession over boot times?

    I shudder to think how many millions of dollars are being spent to shave seconds off something I do MAYBE once a month and I'm sure I'm not alone in my reboot frequency. Microsoft made the default power button a hybrid sleep button and all laptops I've used go to sleep when you shut the lid so boot times simply don't matter that much any more.

    I can't think of anything more ridiculous than a "boot drag race". I can just picture a smoky room full of Microsoft engineers all turning on their computers at the same time and 15 seconds later, one of them jumps up and yells BINGO!!!
    NonZealot
    • Count yourself lucky!

      Alas, many customers who are using Vista on PC's and laptops purchased through retail channels between RTM and RTM + 6 months are suffering a crippled experience.

      Alas, few OEM's thorougly tested their machines with Vista + the mountain of crapware that they preinstalled on those machines to earn a few bucks from the software vendors.

      The result is generally a dreadful experience. A member of my family sadly purchased a Sony laptop and experienced a 4 1/2 minute boot-to-login and a further 8 1/4 minute login-to-IE-open wait. What caused the slowdown? The TWO security suites, Adobe taskbar applet, Synaptics trackpad applet, custom Bluetooth stack & applet, custom WiFi applet, Real Player applet, QuickTime applet, etc. that Sony preinstalled.

      He was about to return it and get a Mac until I stepped in, reformatted his machine, reinstalled a clean copy of Vista, added only the drivers that he really needed, added ONE AV package. He's now in love with his machine!! It takes < 40s for boot-to-login and < 30s for login-to-IE-open.

      The issues people have had (and in some cases still are having - SP1 fixed several OS related issues with boot and shutdown/suspend/resume delays) are the cause of much of the dis-satisfaction with Vista.

      MS has spent the last 2 years fixing the issues within its control and working with OEM's and software vendors, showing them where their apps, drivers, services etc. are crucifying people's machines.

      So if you're getting poor startup/shutdown/sleep/resume perf, make sure your apps are up to date, reduce your startup app burden (run MSCONFIG from start bar) and update your drivers.
      de-void-21165590650301806002836337787023
      • Excellent advice

        [i]A member of my family sadly purchased a Sony laptop and experienced a 4 1/2 minute boot-to-login and a further 8 1/4 minute login-to-IE-open wait. What caused the slowdown? The TWO security suites, Adobe taskbar applet, Synaptics trackpad applet, custom Bluetooth stack & applet, custom WiFi applet, Real Player applet, QuickTime applet, etc. that Sony preinstalled.
        ...
        It takes < 40s for boot-to-login and < 30s for login-to-IE-open.[/i]

        That's a shame about the initial experience and it is a good thing you were able to help him out. It does reinforce the point though that Microsoft is wasting their time (and money) by reducing boot times in the OS itself. As you pointed out, clean Vista boots very quickly, it is the bloat installed by the vendor that slows it down. If Microsoft can get boot times of clean Windows 7 down to 15 seconds from 40 seconds, your friend would still see 4 minute boot times because the problem was never in code that is under Microsoft's control. In other words, Microsoft's "solution" to long boot times doesn't lie in improving Windows code, it lies in working with vendors to ensure they don't install too much bloat.

        This is why I think Microsoft is wasting their time by trying to get clean Windows 7 boot times down to 15 seconds. It won't help people like your friend experiencing long boot times with Vista and it won't help people like me who feel that 40 second boot times once a month are not a big deal.
        NonZealot
        • Very True

          And that's why you'll probably be happy to know that Sinofsky said it himself that they are working hard with the OEMs to make them realize that their pre-installed bloat is what is giving users such slow boot experiences. Let's hope it pays off and the OEMs take it to heart and stop preloading stuff. I think some OEMs now offer an option to not pre-install any software. And some I think charge a lil extra for it to make up for the lost revenue of pre-installing.
          iceykola
          • Good to hear

            [i]And some I think charge a lil extra for it to make up for the lost revenue of pre-installing.[/i]

            How is this for an even better solution: take all the money Microsoft is spending on reducing boot times from 40 seconds to 15 seconds and offer it as a subsidy to OEMs that don't install bloatware. That way end users get 40 second boot times without having to pay for the privilege.
            NonZealot
          • re: Good to hear

            You haven't watched the latest Apple ad. Microsoft isn't spending that much money fixing boot time (who cares - I use Sleep, which is fine). They *are* spending hundreds of millions on advertising, though, but even that wouldn't be enough to compensate all the OEMs for the revenue they get from installing software. That's the business model a ruthlessly competitive market has created. If there was a market for and money to be made charging $25 more for a computer without software, there would be lots of them for sale. The fact that there aren't says it all.

            All the fuss about "fundamentals" is a lot of noise because once you pull the curtain aside on Win7, surprise, it's Vista SP2 1/2...
            still fiddlin
          • look up Vista Velocity

            An program that MS is working for compliance with all OEM's to get proper drivers installed from fsactory on all release units. Sony at last mention already is 100% compliant.
            Most probelms in Vista for speed related issues are due to poor drivers, and app instability issues.
            CrashPad
          • Vista Slowness

            I hear complaints all the time how people do not like vista because it is slow and eats up memory. But every computer I have looked at that a user said was "slow" or "sluggish" has these crapplications installed. I am sure Microsoft can optimise their code a little better but for people to place blame on the OS when its the 3rd party crap that OEMs or the users install themselves causing the problem that is just BS. Its like saying guns kill people. Idiotic crap from stupid people.
            bobiroc
          • Most of the craplications ...

            ... are not Microsoft's code. Microsoft doesn't get to "approve" an OEM's OS image before its shipped and so you end up with OEM builds that contain a mountain of (mostly 30-day eval) software (that the OEM receives payment to ship!) preinstalled on customers' PCs.

            There is little Microsoft can do when, for example, an OEM slaps a major Anti-Virus vendor's scanner serially scans all touched files and deadlocks for 90s before re-starting its scan. During that deadlock, the filesystem stalls.

            Because these AV scanners hook so deeply into the filesystem, Windows can do nothing to "fix" the problem.
            de-void-21165590650301806002836337787023
          • Thats my point

            THats what I was trying to say. People buy a new computer and immediatly attack Windows as the source and fault of the problem when in the vast majority of cases that is not true. Windows is not perfect and neither is any other OS for that matter but people tend to attack what they do not understand.
            bobiroc
          • ... to your last point ...

            ... I agree. I actually experienced this precise scenario with a family member who was really unhappy with the performance and usability of their brand new Vista laptop.

            As I documented earlier, turns out that all their perf issues were down to a very poor OS installation peformed by the machine's OEM.

            But they blamed Microsoft, because they only see Windows. They don't get notified that FooSecuritySuite or BlahFirewallPro is hosing their system.

            Rest assured, MS' work on the Velocity inititative, working with all the top OEM's and software vendors, helps them all understand that the cost of installing unnecessary crapware (support, lost sales, etc) usually exceeds the revenue they earned by installing it in the first place.

            I've you've bought a new PC/laptop recently from a tier-1 OEM, chances are that you're already enjoying a far better experience than someone who bought their machine around Vista RTM.

            Expect the experience of Win7 on a minimally modified OS install to be lightyears better than a Vista RTM experience!
            de-void-21165590650301806002836337787023
        • One benefit of this work is...

          ...the reduced number of services that are running on boot.
          According to the information we have MS is achieving faster
          boot times by reducing the number of services that start on
          boot. That's good from a security point of view.
          ye
          • Only if they aren't started some time later

            It wasn't clear from the article if services were being turned off by default or if they were simply delaying when the services were starting to get you to a usable screen faster. If they are simply being delayed then there is no security advantage, nor would there be any long term performance advantage.

            Hopefully you are right though and then yes, it would make Windows more secure.
            NonZealot
          • Not only the reduced number ...

            ... but also the reduced number that NEED to startup at any point!

            One of Win7's most overlooked features (so-far) is that many services have been converted to new "triggered services" which are only started when one or more of a given number events fire (e.g. IP address changes, machine goes idle for > 5 mins, etc) and which close down automatically when they're done.

            This means that a TON of MS and 3rd party services will now be able to lay dormant, and only get started when they need to be ... and die shortly afterwards freeing up the RAM they consumed.

            This alone makes a HUGE difference to startup and also run-time perf and memory consumption.
            de-void-21165590650301806002836337787023
        • Ahhh ... the CRAPWARE problem!

          The presence of CRAPWARE on new machines is an unfortunate 'unintended consequence' of the Consent Decree worked out between the Department of Justice and Microsoft many years ago.

          Now Microsoft has no say in what gets pre-loaded along with Windows. This was meant to protect Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) but has resulted in OEMs adding anything and everything that they get paid to include on every new machine. I wonder how many of us would actually pay a premium to buy CRAPWARE-free hardware.
          M Wagner
          • According to Sony ...

            ... $50! That was the "fee" they originally charged to NOT install crapware, since that was the revenue they earned from the crapware vendors PER MACHINE SOLD!!!

            Thankfully they've seen the error of their ways and no longer charge for the "privelige" of a clean machine!

            But yes, you're spot-on. As we've seen for the last 8+ years - remove regulation (of any kind) and a market will generally cripple itself before it learns from its mistakes! ;)
            de-void-21165590650301806002836337787023
        • Don't forget ...

          Microsoft is not doing this work alone.

          For the first time in years OEM's are deeming Microsoft's advice worthy of review. Why? Apple is eating the OEM's lunch for them.

          Sony got absolutely creamed over the perf of their early Vista laptops and now ship laptops that basically come with Vista + Drivers + 1 security package (that they've tested!!!).

          Same for Dell. Same for HP.

          MS and their top-10 OEM's world-wide are working together to test OEM's planned builds against Microsoft's ENORMOUS test suite to make sure that customers get a damn fine experience when they get Win7 - be that through a new machine purchase or through an upgrade.

          Remember - Microsoft cannot do this alone - Microsoft doesn't get to see and/or "test and bless" the OEM's OS build before it's shipped. The OEM's have to be willing to work with MS to close the loop.

          THANKFULLY, this is now happening. They're now "practicing" with more recent OEM Vista builds, and will be fully geared up by the time Win7 ships.
          de-void-21165590650301806002836337787023
      • very true

        one of my friends had the same problem on a brand new HP Tablet. His friends were pushing him to swap it with Mac, a quick clean-up of crapware and defragmentation helped him realized the potential of that machine.
        Most of the software installed will add itself in the startup folder, or run key. I use Autoruns from sysinternals.com to clean up all such entries.
        soulxfer@...
      • Yup

        Actually all these OEM vendors should stop installing crapwares that come with Windows Vista (pre-installed) besides the drivers for Windows. All these OEM either bundle trial versions of software or install other crappy applications that really slows down Windows. I don't think there's any OEM that does that. Right? That's why I build my own PC so that I can control what gets installed :)
        shellcodes_coder
    • If it boots faster, it runs faster.

      That much should be obvious. What am I missing?

      TripleII
      TripleII-21189418044173169409978279405827