Ask DLS: how much does a sub-30 second boot matter to you?

Filed under: Productivity, Ask DLS

I need some help with this one. I don't understand why people get so excited about sub-30 second boot times in Windows 7, or with Vista's apparently horrid slowness.

See, I never shut my machine off. I close the lid, it goes to sleep. I open the lid, it resumes in a few short seconds. Windows 7 is especially quick, but Vista was fast, too. Unless I'm toying with an OS that can't pull off the go-to-sleep-and-wake-up trick (several Linux distros, I'm talking to you) I just don't need to power down that often.

My desktop computer at work is the same. When I leave it idle, it suspends. I bang on the space bar and up it comes - and in fewer than 15 seconds. Yes, sometimes a shutdown can't be avoided, but those occasions have been few and far between for me. Am I alone in this?

I wouldn't think so. A friend of mine hasn't rebooted his Linux-based media server in more than a year. It may take a full minute to boot, but I doubt he'd care if it can run for 365 days straight from then on.

Don't get me wrong. I love building systems with Raptors and watching them tear through the startup process. I understand that the amount of time an OS takes to boot says something about how it's been put together. It just seems to me that there are dozens of other things that are more important to compare when looking at the different systems.

What do you think? Do you shut your computer completely off that often? Is a half minute too long to wait for it to power back on?

Ask DLS: how much does a sub-30 second boot matter to you? originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 19 Jan 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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