Andy Young, an ex-Microsoft senior software engineer, posted a message on X/Twitter bemoaning that even with his $1,600 Core i9 CPU and 128 GB of RAM, Windows...
in the time it takes my work windows laptop to get from a login screen to a usable desktop, with the cpu idle, I rebooted and signed in to my linux desktop, and performed a restart. Several times.
I have that behavior as well, but it’s not a Windows issue, it’s all the bloat software that IT installed on it. It’s wild how much it kills this laptop compared to any other PC, not just in login times.
Take a windows computer and don’t have it managed by a company. Manage it yourself. It will slow down over time as the registry and other shit get gunked up over time. I run freebsd, Linux, windows, and mac here and I can tell you for sure after a length of time there’s no speeding up windows. You just need to reinstall it.
That hasn’t really been my experience. The computers I own have had windows for multiple years. I tend to install it when first setting up and never again.
The work laptop has good specs but trash performance from day one that I got it. I had a laptop that I gave away that was much lower spec than the work laptop and it ran better in every way, probably because it had none of the bloat.
Windows in my opinion has huge issues in other areas but performance hasn’t been one of them in the last 15 years for me, probably in part because I avoid running any heavy services in the background.
If I can’t notice a difference while playing games, web browsing, video and photo editing, and working in blender and cad software, what is left to define slow operation? It operating slow should be something noticeable for it to be an issue.
It used to be a problem in windows 98 days, I remember as much. And it is a problem on my work computer but that is day one config from the company, not over time degradation.
Like I said, I dislike windows and it’s dark pattern bullshit as much as the next guy, but performance has not been one of my issues with it on my personal devices.
No, it still happens. Unless you don’t do anything on your computer. If you boot it up and read a spreadsheet and shut it down and do this for 10 years, sure.
Well, I don’t use a laptop, but my desktop boots into usable state in a few seconds. Not sure what your problem is, but it’s most likely between a keyboard and a chair.
My 32gb machine is still running windows 10 and I have been dreading having to switch. I figured that the 8gb was the reason why the other was sluggish now I’m not so sure. I haven’t upgraded my personal devices yet either. I hate that they keep trying to reinvent the wheel with the “metro” backend that they built with windows 8. I saw that even the devices and printers control panel was fully moved into the settings app… Thanks for the reply, I will probably try to hold out a little longer …
Well, your anecdote is certainly more influential to me than listening to a core developer. Plus I want to believe you are right because it feels bad to believe otherwise, so you are obviously correct.
Hmm, guess it sounds silly when I say it that way. I’ll work on it.
Joking, I don’t use Windows, but I hope you are right.
Yes Windows 11 is small enough that this one dude knows all there is to know about it. It is impossible this (former) core developer is wrong, lying or has an axe to grind.
Andy Young was never a core Windows developer. He worked for Microsoft, yes, but his experience is in JavaScript, C# and other web technologies, not C/C++ and system level development.
My midrange gaming laptop which I bought a year and a half ago came with it preinstalled and it’s nowhere near this guy’s specs but I honestly have not had any problems either, and the whole rig cost me slightly more than his CPU alone.
Have you compared it to any other OS though? My 2013 MacBook Air is faster (as in in daily usability, opening windows, closing apps, etc) than my 2023 Thinkpad running Win11. That’s not good performance.
I do also have a 2019 MacBook Pro running Ventura (for when I want to get some work done) and I don’t really notice much of a difference TBH.
That said, I haven’t really benchmarked it in any meaningful or reproducible way and I mainly use the Windows laptop for gaming, so I rarely have more than a few apps open at any given time (basically browser, chat, Steam + whatever other game launcher <publisher X> is forcing me to use to run their shit). Meanwhile, on my MacBook, I tend to have a lot more apps running simultaneously and it still works smoothly despite only having 16 gigs of RAM so I guess MacOS still wins?
Honestly I don’t really care, as long as Windows runs my games and MacOS runs my other stuff, I’m good.
I use Windows 11 for work (dev) and gaming and it’s fine
Not to pile-on, but my work laptop runs Win11 and it randomly hangs for ~5 seconds a few times each day. I’m sure not all of the blame should be put on the OS: the 365 office suite is probably coded for shit as well.
Ugh, office 365 for all its fantastic collab features is such a resource hog it’s pathetic. It’s also sad that half the time a file won’t open on first double click. It just … does nothing.
I absolutely love Windows with the Linux subsystem. Coming from Mac it’s genuinely terrific to not have to mess around with homebrew. Incredible to see how Windows came from being comically inferior to surpassing Apple as there has been absolutely no progression there in the last decade.
My Windows 11 install is also fine, but bloat will always be bloat, and the last thing I want is performance compromised by something I don’t want.
The real dog in my house out of Windows, Fedora, and Mac is my Mac. I can boot Windows and Linux several times before my MVP decides to log me in. Perhaps it’s a sign that end-users don’t really care too much about performance? After all, if boot-up time mattered we’d probably all be on Chromebooks…
It’s really not… I use Windows 11 for work (dev) and gaming and it’s fine.
in the time it takes my work windows laptop to get from a login screen to a usable desktop, with the cpu idle, I rebooted and signed in to my linux desktop, and performed a restart. Several times.
My win11 laptop is practically instant to boot up
Ironically, it takes my work Thinkpad 3x as long to come out of hibernation than to boot. Thanks corporate policy!
I have that behavior as well, but it’s not a Windows issue, it’s all the bloat software that IT installed on it. It’s wild how much it kills this laptop compared to any other PC, not just in login times.
Take a windows computer and don’t have it managed by a company. Manage it yourself. It will slow down over time as the registry and other shit get gunked up over time. I run freebsd, Linux, windows, and mac here and I can tell you for sure after a length of time there’s no speeding up windows. You just need to reinstall it.
That hasn’t really been my experience. The computers I own have had windows for multiple years. I tend to install it when first setting up and never again.
The work laptop has good specs but trash performance from day one that I got it. I had a laptop that I gave away that was much lower spec than the work laptop and it ran better in every way, probably because it had none of the bloat.
Windows in my opinion has huge issues in other areas but performance hasn’t been one of them in the last 15 years for me, probably in part because I avoid running any heavy services in the background.
I guess we need to define performance. The OS operates slowly over time. Likely you’ll notice no difference playing your games or something.
If I can’t notice a difference while playing games, web browsing, video and photo editing, and working in blender and cad software, what is left to define slow operation? It operating slow should be something noticeable for it to be an issue.
It used to be a problem in windows 98 days, I remember as much. And it is a problem on my work computer but that is day one config from the company, not over time degradation.
Like I said, I dislike windows and it’s dark pattern bullshit as much as the next guy, but performance has not been one of my issues with it on my personal devices.
That doesn’t happen since Windows 98 days, lol.
No, it still happens. Unless you don’t do anything on your computer. If you boot it up and read a spreadsheet and shut it down and do this for 10 years, sure.
Except that it doesn’t.
Well, I don’t use a laptop, but my desktop boots into usable state in a few seconds. Not sure what your problem is, but it’s most likely between a keyboard and a chair.
How much ram does it have? 8gb? Genuinely curious. I have a work laptop with 8gb and one with 32…
both have 16 gb ram. Older desktop, newer laptop, so cpu performance is roughly equal. Both use an ssd
My 32gb machine is still running windows 10 and I have been dreading having to switch. I figured that the 8gb was the reason why the other was sluggish now I’m not so sure. I haven’t upgraded my personal devices yet either. I hate that they keep trying to reinvent the wheel with the “metro” backend that they built with windows 8. I saw that even the devices and printers control panel was fully moved into the settings app… Thanks for the reply, I will probably try to hold out a little longer …
Well, your anecdote is certainly more influential to me than listening to a core developer. Plus I want to believe you are right because it feels bad to believe otherwise, so you are obviously correct.
Hmm, guess it sounds silly when I say it that way. I’ll work on it.
Joking, I don’t use Windows, but I hope you are right.
Yes Windows 11 is small enough that this one dude knows all there is to know about it. It is impossible this (former) core developer is wrong, lying or has an axe to grind.
Haha, can we even imagine how big the codebase is? Must be nutty. That’s a cool thought.
Well, I have the same experience as tills13.
I’m glad to hear it, i think I may try it out on my spare laptop and see for myself too.
Andy Young was never a core Windows developer. He worked for Microsoft, yes, but his experience is in JavaScript, C# and other web technologies, not C/C++ and system level development.
My midrange gaming laptop which I bought a year and a half ago came with it preinstalled and it’s nowhere near this guy’s specs but I honestly have not had any problems either, and the whole rig cost me slightly more than his CPU alone.
Maybe he’s just aware and has points of comparison, knows how much better it could be.
Have you compared it to any other OS though? My 2013 MacBook Air is faster (as in in daily usability, opening windows, closing apps, etc) than my 2023 Thinkpad running Win11. That’s not good performance.
I do also have a 2019 MacBook Pro running Ventura (for when I want to get some work done) and I don’t really notice much of a difference TBH.
That said, I haven’t really benchmarked it in any meaningful or reproducible way and I mainly use the Windows laptop for gaming, so I rarely have more than a few apps open at any given time (basically browser, chat, Steam + whatever other game launcher <publisher X> is forcing me to use to run their shit). Meanwhile, on my MacBook, I tend to have a lot more apps running simultaneously and it still works smoothly despite only having 16 gigs of RAM so I guess MacOS still wins?
Honestly I don’t really care, as long as Windows runs my games and MacOS runs my other stuff, I’m good.
Not to pile-on, but my work laptop runs Win11 and it randomly hangs for ~5 seconds a few times each day. I’m sure not all of the blame should be put on the OS: the 365 office suite is probably coded for shit as well.
Ugh, office 365 for all its fantastic collab features is such a resource hog it’s pathetic. It’s also sad that half the time a file won’t open on first double click. It just … does nothing.
I absolutely love Windows with the Linux subsystem. Coming from Mac it’s genuinely terrific to not have to mess around with homebrew. Incredible to see how Windows came from being comically inferior to surpassing Apple as there has been absolutely no progression there in the last decade.
Lightning fast for me but I’ll shut up about it .
My Windows 11 install is also fine, but bloat will always be bloat, and the last thing I want is performance compromised by something I don’t want.
The real dog in my house out of Windows, Fedora, and Mac is my Mac. I can boot Windows and Linux several times before my MVP decides to log me in. Perhaps it’s a sign that end-users don’t really care too much about performance? After all, if boot-up time mattered we’d probably all be on Chromebooks…
I use it for work and I’d say it’s terrible. Although the work in do is a bit demanding for the hardware I’m given.
It’s not that great.