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Did Windows 10 slow down with each feature update?

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Re: Did Windows 10 slow down with each feature update?

#251

Post by _carbyau_ »

celsoazevedo wrote: post #30
kevinskii wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great question. I'm wondering the same thing. I also built a PC in 2017 and installed Windows 10 on it. It initially had a 7s boot time following bios startup. Several updates later, the boot time is now close to a minute and app startup times are noticeably slower as well. I've always been very careful about what software I install on it. I've done all of the standard troubleshooting, but so far it hasn't gotten bad…

Task Manager → "Start up" tab Disable everything and see if it boots faster.

To add further, those more adventurous can also use Sysinternals free Autoruns utility to find out everything that could start.

Handy hint, it has an option to hide all the default Microsoft stuff so you just see third party.

Re: Did Windows 10 slow down with each feature update?

#252

Post by jiggawatts »

scrps wrote: post #217

This is purely speculation and observation but I had to disable all the anti-telemetry hacks on my (aging) W10 gaming desktop and I noticed a marked increase in latency in everything from opening a folder to launching simple applications. Once I re-enabled all the patches the latency seem to vanish. I have no data or hard evidence to back any of this up so take it with a large grain of salt.

What's the fastest way to configure this?

Re: Did Windows 10 slow down with each feature update?

#254

Post by kroltan »

samplatt wrote: post #247
moth-fuzz wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been precisely my experience. Windows 7 was fast on an HDD and blazing fast on a SSD. Windows 10 is unusable on an HDD and usable on an SSD. Still kinda sluggish, even then, for what it's worth. Not to mention the applications. A slow operating system that uses so much resources merely idling plus Applications-That-Are-Actually-Web-Browsers make day to day usage almost innavigable for someone with quick refl…

>almost innavigable for someone with quick reflexes My few short years with Windows 3.1+ spoiled me for all future versions of windows. Instant closing, instant alt-tabbing, double-clicking the top-left corner icon to close, (nearly) instant opening of simple apps like File Manager and Notepad... not to mention the instant crashes. Linux got close but still always felt clunky, while future versions of Windows and Mac…

Right? I opened a Windows XP VM inside my 10 box a bit ago to play an old game, and oh boy was that incredibly snappy compared to what we have now. Sure, it's running in anachronistic hardware, but where did we go wrong?

3.1 was before my time, but I can imagine.

Re: Did Windows 10 slow down with each feature update?

#255

Post by andrepd »

sph wrote: post #71
boba7 wrote: post #5

Anyone finally willing to admit that w10 is unusable on Hard Drives while Linux and W7 work fine on them?

Why do people still expect modern software to run at incredible speeds on hard disk drives? Run old technology with old software. It is ridiculous that consumer hardware is still being sold with crappy 5400 RPM disks in 2021. No, I have no interest in optimising my software for speeds that are 1/10th of my broadband. Unless we're talking archival or huge storage necessities, stop complaining about modern OS or games…

Being blunt: you're a terrible developer if you think like that.

What the heck does it matter if 5400 RPM disks are old technology or not?? Do you have any actual reason that your program runs slowly on such hardware?

It's very arrogant to assume that since you can afford to upgrade to the latest technologies, then everyone who can't should be left behind. There are probably billions of people using spinning rust in their machines. If your software does not run with acceptable performance then that's a problem with your software, not their hardware.

Re: Did Windows 10 slow down with each feature update?

#256

Post by hateful »

sharms wrote: post #146

Disappointed I didn't see fairly reasonable explanations around processor security bugs which impact broad system performance such as Spectre and Meltdown. This has a significant impact on Linux and Microsoft has even outlined that these fixes impact their performance (there have been many more security bugs identified since): https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2018/01/09/understan...

That was my first thought. I remember reading an article before Spectre was patched, that it could slow down the speed by ~5%? I never checked back in on it.

I have noticed that the latest update feels faster than all the other ones, but it's always hard to tell since that's the only time I really reboot the machine.

Re: Did Windows 10 slow down with each feature update?

#257

Post by michaelpb »

1_player wrote: post #179
MereInterest wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I am of the opinion that anything that was possible in computing 15 years ago should be perceptibly instant today. There are obvious exceptions such as cross-continent communication being limited by the speed of light, but as a general rule. Instead, we get software that's written as if Dennard scaling were still occurring.

My desktop built in 2020 is perceptibly instant today. The slowest booting application is VSCode taking 2 whole seconds to start from cold. None of the figures shown in the article have any relevance if one has a slight knowledge of their operating system and are not running on decades old technology.

I dunno, I think I disagree. I have much higher expectations of software. I have these expectations simply because most of what we do these days we could do decades ago, and using orders of magnitude fewer CPU cycles than the "state of the art" now (e.g. your example of VS Code). Most software falls far, far short of these expectations, which, IMO, is an ongoing embarrassment for the entire field.

Even your example of 2 whole seconds seems wayyy too slow to me. I don't even tolerate that sort of delay when working on my 10+ year old commodity hardware --- I've already tweaked my tools to be totally instantaneous so I can continue typing as soon as I release the short-cut key.

Re: Did Windows 10 slow down with each feature update?

#258

Post by eganist »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #249
qzw wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An incredibly low probability multiplied by ~billion+ users means somebody is going to lose something valuable sooner or later. And then the odds of MS getting sued for “not even patching a well-known vulnerability” becomes 100%.

But that's also a billion+ users with much slower computers! So you need to compare the harm on both sides. And then MS could add a switch in Settings for anyone who is concerned. (I realize not many people would find it, but it seems important for the option to be accessible, without digging into the registry or some such.)

> But that's also a billion+ users with much slower computers! So you need to compare the harm on both sides.

Far more likely Microsoft would be legally exposed due to a skipped patch than a patch that slows machines down. Intel on the other hand, that'd be more interesting.

> And then MS could add a switch in Settings for anyone who is concerned. (I realize not many people would find it, but it seems important for the option to be accessible, without digging into the registry or some such.)

Any such switch would just be disabled via GPOs by corporate security teams anyway, so what's the point? The entities who would most "benefit" wouldn't even be able to do it.

Re: Did Windows 10 slow down with each feature update?

#259

Post by MonaroVXR »

jokoon wrote: post #108
boba7 wrote: post #5

Anyone finally willing to admit that w10 is unusable on Hard Drives while Linux and W7 work fine on them?

Totally. Back in 2020, after one update, windows 10 was taking about 5min to boot on a thinkpad, if not more. Had to install a SSD, changed everything. Pretty curious to hear what kernel developer or filesystem developers have to say about this, because it doesn't really make sense to me. I can understand why something would stop working, but not to just become slow. In what world does a system change result in worse…

https://danluu.com/input-lag/

Re: Did Windows 10 slow down with each feature update?

#260

Post by stygiansonic »

How were these measurements obtained? Are they an average, and if so what was the variance of the measurements? For some the difference seems substantial but without knowing the variance across measurements it is a little difficult to assess whether the differences are actually significant. (Basically would there be a statistically significant difference between each condition)

Obviously this would be a lot more work, so I don’t want to detract from the work that’s already been done.

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