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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?

#281

Post by Causality1 »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #236
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...

If this is really what's making the difference... I wonder if these mitigations shouldn't be automatically enabled for home users. The chances of Spectre or Meltdown actually managing to acquire sensitive data seems incredibly low. Is that worth the very large performance impact?

Until there's an actual documented in the wild attacks against individuals, I see zero reason to enable these crippling security measures on my home desktop.

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

#282

Post by dangus »

fredsted wrote: post #89
dangus wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows 7 is 12 years old now. Spinning hard drives are 100% dead in the consumer market. Why in the world would a modern operating system not optimize for SSDs? I can’t think of a single reason to use a spinning drive on my computer. Almost every conceivable use case is better relegated to a separate NAS box. You can get a 1TB PCIe nvme SSD rated at 3100Mbps read speeds for $125. Why would I chip off an order of mag…

The thing is, computers with SSDs feel about as fast as computers were with HDDs 12 years ago. Some apps still take 10 seconds or more to load on brand new hardware in 2021. There shouldn't be any random wait times in daily usage. Sure, things have gotten more advanced, but it feels like the speed improvements of hardware are being used for bloat, rather than making computers even faster. It seems computer performanc…

I’d love find some hardware along with period-appropriate software and run tests to debunk or support your idea. I still just don’t buy it, but it’s hard to find quantitative evidence without just going out and trying it.

By the way, 10 seconds clocked on a stopwatch is a ridiculously long time. Almost no apps open that slowly, in 2009 or 2021.

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

#283

Post by johncolanduoni »

zargon wrote: post #279
koheripbal wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I find most disappointing is that even processors manufactured TODAY contain these flaws and have performance hits put into the firmware. This issue is so fundamental to how CPU caches work, that there really is not a true performance-neutral fix.

An alternative interpretation is that there are no current "performance hits", just the legitimate performance is now (better) known. Those former "performance gains" were cheated, akin to Volkswagen emissions tests. Edit: it was Volkswagen not Volvo.

It’s news to me that Intel, AMD, and various ARM licensees all knew about these problems (and vague “the ~truth~ side channels are out there” handwaves that were made for many years don’t count) when the requisite speculation changes were made 20 years ago and left them in anyway. And that still isn’t quite an equivalence to the Volvo emission tests, since the processors don’t try to detect if you’re testing them and change behavior.

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

#284

Post by freeone3000 »

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.)

Think of the average windows user. This person uses Chrome because they got a popup when they went to Gmail. The shortcut for candy crush is still in their start menu because it doesn't bother anything. I am not being insulting -- this is the average, median windows user. This is the person for whom Windows Home is designed. There is ZERO CHANCE that this user knows what a "speculative execution mitigation" is. There is a nonzero chance some cleaner site will tell them to turn it off because it "makes windows faster". They don't understand it can be executed from a website because they don't think of websites as programs because they don't have an icon on the desktop. There is no way this turns out well.

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

#285

Post by cmurf »

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…

Maybe Microsoft removed the optimizations for rotational devices? XFS is considering it: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-xfs/20200514103454.GL2040@drea...

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

#286

Post by toast0 »

marcosdumay wrote: post #267
nso wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this?

I have a little idea. I know Windows does a lot of useless disk access¹, but I never thought it was localized before I tried a VM. I always assumed it was random, but it looks like it's kinda random, but all over the same small area, and Windows can't optimize it for some reason. Anyway, if you do that, you better keep those ~3GB free. If you don't have enough cache things break down really fast. 1 - It is for cortan…

While we're spitballing, from my recollection, it seems to do a lot of small writes; probably different write cache policies, possibly including the VM not passing through fsync/write barriers.

And, you know, organizational failure to have this issue lingering.

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

#287

Post by mulmen »

bl0b wrote: post #242
vel0city wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Resize and clone the install from the HDD to the SSD. I've had the same "install" of Windows since 2011, its gone through 3 different storage mediums, two different motherboards, and three different CPUs. My go-to for a low level copy between two different drives is Clonezilla. https://clonezilla.org/ GParted is also another live OS with good tools to manage partitions. https://gparted.org/

Does windows handle it alright when the hardware (motherboard/cpu) it's running on changes out from under it?

On the PC I described above I have added and removed several additional hard drives over the years as I expand and they die. Recently I had my old Nvidia graphics card die and replaced it with an ATI.

I uninstalled the nvidia drivers then installed the ATI ones and it seems to work fine. No activation complaints.

It's actually been very easy to keep this thing running. Pretty much just plug in new parts when old ones fail. I think my spinning rust HDD is about to die though so I should take the suggestions in this thread and go through the process of moving the OS to the SSD.

At some point in the distant past I might have replaced a Core 2 Duo for a Core 2 Quad. Or I may have built it this way, not sure.

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

#288

Post by mulmen »

brudgers wrote: post #175
mulmen wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I upgraded from 7 to 10 I had an SSD in my machine but was never given an option to install 10 to the SSD. It requires some contortions to get physical install media and then start over on a new install on the SSD instead of doing any kind of convenient system migration. The "choice" I made was back in 2009 when I installed 7 to an HDD, which seems like a reasonable choice.

I have never had an issue installing Windows 10 to a machine I upgraded to an ssd…I had hell with an old Dell Precision workstation because of the built in RAID controller…but that’s another story…and when I upgraded that machine to W7 from XP 64 bit, I bought new spinning rust for it. But W8 went smooth and I got W10 working by disabling the RAID during install (I used an SSD for boot). That machine, with dual e5405…

This was the "free" upgrade to 10 from 7. It only offered in-place upgrades. I didn't want to go through the pain of an actual fresh install. I don't really understand why Microsoft couldn't (didn't) give the option to install to a new drive while upgrading.

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

#289

Post by zargon »

johncolanduoni wrote: post #283
zargon wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An alternative interpretation is that there are no current "performance hits", just the legitimate performance is now (better) known. Those former "performance gains" were cheated, akin to Volkswagen emissions tests. Edit: it was Volkswagen not Volvo.

It’s news to me that Intel, AMD, and various ARM licensees all knew about these problems (and vague “the ~truth~ side channels are out there” handwaves that were made for many years don’t count) when the requisite speculation changes were made 20 years ago and left them in anyway. And that still isn’t quite an equivalence to the Volvo emission tests, since the processors don’t try to detect if you’re testing them and…

It's my understanding that the bulk of the vulnerabilities in question are not present to near the degree on AMD and ARM. If AMD and ARM could do things mostly properly, why couldn't Intel?

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

#290

Post by motardo »

zargon wrote: post #279
koheripbal wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I find most disappointing is that even processors manufactured TODAY contain these flaws and have performance hits put into the firmware. This issue is so fundamental to how CPU caches work, that there really is not a true performance-neutral fix.

An alternative interpretation is that there are no current "performance hits", just the legitimate performance is now (better) known. Those former "performance gains" were cheated, akin to Volkswagen emissions tests. Edit: it was Volkswagen not Volvo.

For the record, it was Volkswagen that cheated the emissions test, not Volvo
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