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Why did Windows 7 log on slower for months if you had a solid color background?

devblogs.microsoft.com

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Re: Why did Windows 7 log on slower for months if you had a solid color background?

#241

Post by gjsman-1000 »

tough wrote: post #240
vlowrian wrote: post #62

As someone who prefers a solid color background, I’m always surprised by how often this simple preference leads me into bizarre rabbit holes. Some additional examples beyond the OP: - In the latest macOS, trying to set a custom solid color background just gives you a blinding white screen (see: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/256029958?sortBy=rank ). - GNOME removed all UI controls for setting solid color backgr…

It kinda seems to me this is better solved by a webapp that lets you generate any background image and download and you set it up on your OS.

When you say it that way, it's actually baffling that there's still separate code paths for solid background colors.

Just offer a background picker, and have it generate a 1x1 PNG, for the color selected. Just like that, you can use the image background code path for everything; and the code for generating the image almost certainly exists in the OS already. Maybe add some metadata to the generated image to filter it from the images picker, and you're done.

Re: Why did Windows 7 log on slower for months if you had a solid color background?

#242

Post by anonymars »

p_ing wrote: post #171
Moru wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never had a windows computer that was able to do any sort of sleep without crashing, either in the sleep mode or randomly a time after waking up. First thing I do is disable it, I have lost enough time trying to find the cause of it and the crashes usually stop if I don't use sleep modes. Most of my computers and friends computers have been ASUS though, maybe that is a connection. (Windows user since 3.11 but…

ACPI implementations have been terrible for a very long time, ASUS is no exception. This is where a good portion of sleep-related issues stem from. The other side is garbage drivers. I have a joystick from Virpil, which has it's own drivers (extensible configuration) that prevented sleep. That said, if I remove the joystick from the picture, my ASUS-based Am4 system sleeps just fine.

It might be due to phantom/imperceptible input. I have this with a bunch of similar flight sim peripherals.

I ended up getting one of those USB hubs with switches to disable the ports.

That was a saga in itself: it had a firmware issue where 3 of the 7 ports didn't work right. Apparently it's two 4-port hubs in a trenchcoat.

They had a firmware update but apparently it had a virus in the loader app so they pulled it, you needed to contact support to get the new firmware. Their support insisted on sending me a replacement hub instead, which of course didn't work. And then a second time, I'm pretty sure, and only then did they send me a new firmware update which solved the issue.

Well. Anyway. Those hubs are theoretically good so you can avoid the wear on the USB connectors.

But I guess the theme of bad QA is a common one. This wasn't an Amazon alphabet soup brand Chinese special, either.

Re: Why did Windows 7 log on slower for months if you had a solid color background?

#243

Post by tough »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #241
tough wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It kinda seems to me this is better solved by a webapp that lets you generate any background image and download and you set it up on your OS.

When you say it that way, it's actually baffling that there's still separate code paths for solid background colors. Just offer a background picker, and have it generate a 1x1 PNG, for the color selected. Just like that, you can use the image background code path for everything; and the code for generating the image almost certainly exists in the OS already. Maybe add some metadata to the generated image to filter it…

It feels like a lot of these non-sense features is what you get after years of fixes and releases, it's hard to envision a full system 10 years out and get it right, and there's almost never time to clean up unless it's a greenfield project or something.

Re: Why did Windows 7 log on slower for months if you had a solid color background?

#244

Post by Merad »

vlowrian wrote: post #62

As someone who prefers a solid color background, I’m always surprised by how often this simple preference leads me into bizarre rabbit holes. Some additional examples beyond the OP: - In the latest macOS, trying to set a custom solid color background just gives you a blinding white screen (see: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/256029958?sortBy=rank ). - GNOME removed all UI controls for setting solid color backgr…

You know, I bought a MBP as a personal machine 6 months ago - my first Mac - and this post made me realize that I couldn't even tell you what its desktop looks like. I'm sure I saw it a few times when I was doing initial setup, but I don't remember anything about. I used to do things like set custom wallpapers, but probably around 10 years I pretty much stopped using the desktop entirely.

Re: Why did Windows 7 log on slower for months if you had a solid color background?

#245

Post by anonymars »

anonymars wrote: post #242
p_ing wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ACPI implementations have been terrible for a very long time, ASUS is no exception. This is where a good portion of sleep-related issues stem from. The other side is garbage drivers. I have a joystick from Virpil, which has it's own drivers (extensible configuration) that prevented sleep. That said, if I remove the joystick from the picture, my ASUS-based Am4 system sleeps just fine.

It might be due to phantom/imperceptible input. I have this with a bunch of similar flight sim peripherals. I ended up getting one of those USB hubs with switches to disable the ports. That was a saga in itself: it had a firmware issue where 3 of the 7 ports didn't work right. Apparently it's two 4-port hubs in a trenchcoat. They had a firmware update but apparently it had a virus in the loader app so they pulled it,…

My absolute favorite, though, is my monitor. Alienware OLED. But their stupid app, which installs itself automatically thanks to that well-thought-through Windows feature nowadays despite my removing it -- if that's installed, the monitor won't go to sleep. Which is really great for an OLED monitor.

That one, it seems if I disable the "software device" in device manager, it stops installing itself. But how do you release and force install a companion app for a monitor that will burn it out? It comes with a 3-year warranty that covers OLED burn-in...

Re: Why did Windows 7 log on slower for months if you had a solid color background?

#246

Post by arkh »

mike_hearn wrote: post #163
72deluxe wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I am baffled how modern apps are painfully slow. Everything seems to include a Chrome Embedded Framework and therefore have an entire browser running. There is sadly a generation of people who grew up after .net was introduced who think it's perfectly reasonable for a VM spooling up as part of an app load or loading a browser is fine too, and have no idea how speedy Windows 95 used to be, or how loading an app to…

Let's not go too far with the rose tinted glasses. Win95 apps are speedy if you run them on modern hardware but at the time they were all dog slow because the average Win95 machine was swapping like crazy. Loading apps on it definitely did not take one second. The prevalence of splash screens was a testament to that. Practically every app had one whereas today they're rare. Even browsers had multi-second splash scree…

My benchmark is irfanview. I think I started using it on XP and you got to enjoy the speed from the install (3 clicks and where you'd expect a loading bar you get a "launch or close wizard").

Re: Why did Windows 7 log on slower for months if you had a solid color background?

#247

Post by MisterTea »

zeeebo wrote: post #224
MisterTea wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is/was a mode for this in Windows server. I also seem to remember a low cost/free windows for server or embedded meant for iot or whatever that featured cmd only without explorer.

Sounds similar to WinPE

Ah, that is likely it.

Re: Why did Windows 7 log on slower for months if you had a solid color background?

#248

Post by jcotton42 »

MisterTea wrote: post #247
zeeebo wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds similar to WinPE

Ah, that is likely it.

It's Server Core, not PE.

PE is the Preinstallation Environment, used by Windows Setup and Windows Recovery.

Re: Why did Windows 7 log on slower for months if you had a solid color background?

#249

Post by Der_Einzige »

queenkjuul wrote: post #178
cogman10 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's historic reasons. KDE used to be the "bloated" desktop way back when (I know, pretty silly and laughable now given the current state of things). That cemented Gnome/Mate into a lot of major distros as the primary DME. Ubuntu being the most famous. The QT licensing situation is also a bit of a bizarre quagmire. There are certainly people that don't like KDE for more ideological reasons. Personally, none o…

KDE still seems pretty bloated

xfce remains the best GUI for Linux (outside of the tiling WMs which are far superior). No I will never change my mind.

Re: Why did Windows 7 log on slower for months if you had a solid color background?

#250

Post by SoftTalker »

jameshart wrote: post #164
phkahler wrote: post #162

This is the kind of problem that can be prevented by using "better" coding patterns. Not to say it will be prevented, but that some ways people like to structure code are more prone to these kinds of bugs. I quoted the word "better" because I work with a competent but less experienced guy that tends to write more complex code, or what some claim is just a different style than I would prefer. I make claims that "this…

Let’s be honest this is the kind of thing that can happen to anyone. We all like to think we have picked up habits that immunize us from certain kinds of error but large software systems are complex and bugs happen. The number of people in here taking ‘Raymond Chen tells an anecdote about the time a dumb bug shipped in Windows and was fixed two weeks later’ as an indictment of Microsoft’s engineering culture is frank…

I don't think this kind of thing can happen to anyone. This strikes me a feature that was not tested.

So, you're going to implement bitmapped backgrounds. Naturally, after writing the code, you test with and without bitmapped backgrounds and make sure both cases work. Right?

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