Why Windows is Slow

hype7 writes "The New York Times is running an article on why they think Windows is so slow. They boil it down to one key factor - legacy support - and they hold up Apple as an example of a company willing to make hard decisions around legacy support in order to provide a better product. From the article: 'Windows is now so big and onerous because of the size of its code base, the size of its ecosystem and its insistence on compatibility with the legacy hardware and software, that it just slows everything down ... That's why a company like Apple has such an easier time of innovation.'"

Comments

if only

[deltree1010]

I'd have had first post if windows wasn't so slow. :-(

Transitions....

[BWJones]

Interestingly, I've found Apple to be very willing to integrate backwards and forwards support in their OS. In the transition from 680X0 to PPC, Apple made sure to include some very clever programming that allowed a native and non-native apps to co-exist. In the transition to OS X from Classic, they included Classic as a virtual environment and in the transition from PPC to Intel, they are working very hard on Rosetta, another environment that preserves people's investment in their software.

In contrast, I've had a fairly difficult time getting older software on Windows to even run sometimes. We kept a Win95 box around for the longest time because of some very specific software we needed that would not run on anything else.

Re:Transitions....

[Matey-O]

What's funny is, based on Microsoft and Apples experiences with virtual environments, you'd think Microsoft would take the whole backwards compatibility miasma and throw it into a Connectix/Virtual PC environment.

Build the whole OS as a tight, single codebase that supports VMs, then let the VMs handle backwards compatibility. I never understood why 100% of the population has to suffer for the 3% that wants that parallel port handheld scanner to work.

Emulation Layer

[NETHED]

Windows Vista is coming out as a 're-write' of the code, but I don't believe they are recoding the real legacy parts of the Windows code. I think Microsoft needs to do away with native legacy support like Apple did, but keep it around with emulation. If WINE can reverse engineer the Windows layer, than why can't Microsoft, with access to the source?

Vista

[Z1NG]

Maybe this is why Vista is taking so long to come out. They are programming it in Windows.

TERRIBLE name for the article!

[SwashbucklingCowboy]

The NYT titled the article "Why Windows is Slow" - it should have been titled "Why Microsoft is Slow". The article talks about the slow delivery of new versions of Windows relative to Apple deliveries of Darwin. It's got nothing to do with the performance of Windows itself.

You want faster Windows?

[Mayhem178]

Despite the fact that this article has little to nothing to do with the "slowness" of Windows loading/execution (which is, of course, debatable depending on the app in question), I'll indulge the M$ haters and throw this into the mix.

If you want faster Windows, use nLite. It's a beautiful tool that lets one take a Windows XP installation CD and make any number of modifications to it: remove unwanted components/drivers, preset Windows settings, slipstream hotfixes and service packs...even completely automate the installation process by presetting all installation information (license key, etc.). Then, it generates a brand spanking new ISO for you to burn and use for installation. It's glorious.

After nLite-ing my personal XP installation, I must say I have never been happier with Windows. I've left it running for weeks with no problems. A fresh installation of my nLited XP is just over 1 GB of HDD space (whereas the typical XP installation can top 3 GB). It could have been less, but not without removing several components that I wanted to keep.

Granted, this tweaking is not without its quirks. I do occasionally get a warning about "unrecognized file versions", but thus far ignoring them has not caused any problems. I would suggest the following though: I know it's tempting to remove IE right off the bat, but trust me when I say don't. It is needed for some very important functions (such as updates). Also, I would caution against removing Windows Media Player as well. Sure, you may never use it (hell, I never did), but if you remove it, it takes its codecs with it, which can cause other apps to not function properly (such as Winamp). I guess you never know what you have until it's gone. If you're bound and determined to remove it, then I highly recommend the ACE Mega Codecs Pack as a replacement.

Happy hacking!