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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?

#281

Post by chuckadams »

oblio wrote: post #277
chuckadams wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I last reinstalled the apps on my phone, the one Google app that ironically I didn’t keep was Keep.

I really want a simple and easy to use shopping/TODO/checklist app that I can use with my family, from a vendor that has been around for a long time. Ideally free, but I'm fine with paying a small price for it. It should be available on Windows/Android/iOS. The problem is, I don't really trust most small vendors...

Maybe rememberthemilk.com. I don't use it or any other fancy stuff like it now, but it was pretty good a decade ago.

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

#282

Post by whynotmaybe »

drewolbrich wrote: post #211
whynotmaybe wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to take a picture with my finger on the camera to have a black image to use as background.

Another way is to do a Google image search for "black".

It should enter the competition of the most convoluted ways to have a black background on your phone.

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

#283

Post by Merad »

ryandrake wrote: post #263
Merad wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How do you not have a desktop? What do you see when all your applications are closed?

I always have at least a web browser open, and as the other comment said MacOS reopens apps on restart.

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

#284

Post by anthk »

cogman10 wrote: post #174
woolion wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I checked in KDE, since I'm generally confused as to why it's not more popular now: in the wallpaper settings you choose `wallpaper type: plain color` and it gives you a color picker to set it. It also shows you the screen you set it for, and a boolean to set it for all screens at once.

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…

Kde3 was already free when Ubuntu started.

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

#285

Post by anthk »

ryandrake wrote: post #266
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…

Maybe I'm still living in the 1990s, but isn't the graphics API call to paint a solid 2D rectangle infinitely faster than the call to blt a 2D image to the screen, with possible arbitrary scaling and clipping? Or is everything just natively textures now and we don't even have 2D drawing hardware?

The second.

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

#286

Post by danadam »

I use a picture with a solid color because with pictures the text under the icons is white with a black shadow. The "Solid color" option (instead of "Picture") chooses either white or black font color and there is no shadow and I don't like it.

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

#287

Post by nandomrumber »

dizhn wrote: post #129
doublerabbit wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure but why should a workaround be required for a feature that should work?

If they can't get colors to work, the software should just create the image itself and fake it.

It’s open source, I’ll “just write the code myself.”

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

#288

Post by chii »

mike_hearn wrote: post #258
72deluxe wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose you are right. I worked with MFC/C++ and COM and it was horrible. Delphi and C++ Builder things were nicer to use but fell by the wayside, particularly after Borland lost their focus and didn't bother supporting VCL correctly in themes and also had major issues with their C++ compiler. They suffered a brain drain. I remember Windows Explorer opening swiftly back in the day (fileman even faster - https://git…

Well, today I spent a lot of time waiting for some slow software that I wrote and maintain, a program that helps ship large desktop apps that use JVM or Electron. It can do native apps too but nearly nobody writes those. So I guess I both feel and create your pain in several directions. Why is my software slow? Partly because the task is inherently intensive. Partly because I use an old Intel MacBook that throttles i…

> People complain to me about various things, performance isn't one of them.

which is fine, and you are doing the absolutely correct thing regarding fixing what's being complained about.

But the complaints i keep hearing (and having myself) is that most apps are quite slow, and has been increasingly growing slower over time as updates arrives - mobile phones in particular.

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

#289

Post by MathMonkeyMan »

bregma wrote: post #124
ffsm8 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only do they forbid devs to use Linux on their dev machines, they then proceed with cb.exe etc. Nothing shows how they value your time quiet as much as these artificial slowdowns they love to introduce. (Along with gigantic privacy issues, as it allows the employer to essentially look at a live feed of your desktop whenever they want) I could understand it if your device needed special access (VPN to prod etc), b…

Well, we use Linux dev machines but IT has loaded them up with enough panopticon software that several times a week for an hour or so I can not get enough CPU or resident RAM to do productive work. But at least there are no forced system reboots at inconvenient times during the work day.

At a previous job they offered Linux laptops (yay!), but...

- umask was not 022, so installing pretty much anything with `sudo make install` would fail, as would some software.

- Running nmap caused an alert to phone home to IT, who would nag me on slack.

- Opening well-known ports to my LAN (like 22) caused an alert to IT.

- An "agent" program ran constantly, often using 100% of a CPU. The system overall had about 45 minutes of battery life.

- Various system settings were overridden by a sysctl.d/ file that was regenerated by the agent at boot. Fortunately I know how ASCII sorting works and could produce a file that overrode the overrides.

- Various capabilities (CAP_...) were disabled for my sudoer user.

It wasn't that bad, and IT was helpful, but it was a persistent annoyance. Maybe what happened is somebody googled "how to harden Linux" and then just made everything on the first page of results company policy.

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

#290

Post by cornholio »

smittywerben wrote: post #226
cornholio wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may lose that bet. Nobody is writing or pushing driver updates for 10 year old hardware, yet Microsoft's strategy to cripple S3 sleep to compete with mobile OSes is well documented, with the, again, widely documented effect of setting on fire laptops their owners believed were "shut down".

Hell even today in 2025 I installed my Wacom tablet drivers (USB drawing tablet) and the installer says "You must restart your system... Note: Shut down is not the same as Restart", like what does that even mean? It's a classic Microsoft move I'd say.

Well, Windows computers have a prominent button that evolved from the ATX shutdown button that actually used to turn off energy completely, but the button has been long since hijacked to do all sort of fancy sleep gymnastics; there is no other "shutdown" button that the user can operate.

So I can definitely see why a driver installer is very nervous about people "shutting down" their devices to reload the system. Why would a full restart be required in the 3rd millennium to load a driver for an USB input device is of course another Microsoft philosophical moment.

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