New Phoenix BIOS Starts Windows 7 Boot In 1 Second

suraj.sun excerpts from a tantalizing Engadget post: "Phoenix is showing off a few interesting things at IDF, but the real standout is their new Instant Boot BIOS [video here], a highly optimized UEFI implementation that can start loading an OS in just under a second. Combined with Windows 7's optimized startup procedure, that means you're looking at incredibly short boot times — we saw a retrofitted Dell Adamo hit the Windows desktop in 20 seconds, while a Lenovo T400s with a fast SSD got there in under 10."

Comments

yeah, but...

[jollyreaper]

After you see the desktop it's another minute for all the system tray crap to load. And if you're stuck with corporate antivirus? May as well throw some cinderblocks in the trunk of that nice sportscar and watch it do 0 to 60 like an arthritic Ford Pinto.

I don't understand the obsession...

[IANAAC]

I don't understand the obsession with short boot times.

Most of us keep our machines running all the time. I would think a quicker return from suspend or hibernate would be more useful.

Re:I don't understand the obsession...

[petes_PoV]

And if a PC booted in sub 1-second, more people would switch off and stop wasting power - and then marvel at the savings they make.

The two reasons for ever-on PCs is either when the user doesn't like to wait the (in my case) minutes for the boot sequence to run through: whether that's Linux or Microsoft, it's far too long.
The second reason is when they're running stuff in that background: a server or data collection, or just a long download,. Obviously in this case, faster booting won't help but ignoring these power-users (which is probably a big proportion of the /. base, so there's no need to identify yourselves - I get it), if it gets a few million more PCs turned off then it's a good thing.

Hilarious video

[blind biker]

"Don't take my word for it, take Microsoft's word" !!!

I think I'm going to trust a random schmuck any day rather than Microsoft.

Re:BIOS

[clone53421]

Nah. I'd tend to agree with GP. If you're a critical service, you want on-line redundancy, so you roll over immediately and it doesn't matter how long the second server takes to reboot. If you're not critical and you don't have redundant servers, 5 minutes of down-time probably isn't much worse than 1... you just have to schedule it at an off-peak time.

Re:BIOS

[kimvette]

You're not going to get that kind of uptime from a Windows box even without problems, thanks to patch tuesdays. Of course, it depends on how downtime is defined. If you use Microsoft's definition, "scheduled maintenance windows" are not classified as down time, but the rest of the world defines such things as down time. This is how they skewed the numbers to get such high uptime statistics for their "get the FUD" campaign.

without redefining down time like Microsoft does, you will never achieve that kind of uptime on Windows unless a) the box NEVER get infected b) you NEVER install the Windows updates and c) you NEVER change the configuration or change/update any software.

Re:BIOS

[operagost]

When making claims for availability as a service provider, scheduled maintenance is NOT counted in "the nines". You are making a guarantee of reliability, not uptime per se.