Windows 7 boots slower if you set a solid background color • Hacker News Board

Re: Windows 7 boots slower if you set a solid background color

#31

Post by lardo » Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 9:51 PM UTC

PlunderBunny wrote: post #8

Hands up all the people that used computers before desktop pictures were a thing and still set the desktop to a solid colour because “it will draw faster and use less memory.”

I remember when I was a child, crashing my father's Windows 3 computer because I set all the desktop icons to animated GIFs!

Re: Windows 7 boots slower if you set a solid background color

#32

Post by aaronmdjones » Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 9:52 PM UTC

quesomaster9000 wrote: post #25

thrtythreeforty wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many microsoft.com pages do. I don't know how it hasn't infuriated them enough to fix it.

At this point I wouldn't be surprised if their site loaded a WASM-compiled remote-desktop viewer to interact with 'Edge in the cloud' just to view the page you want.

Jeez don't give them such Lovecraftian ideas.

Re: Windows 7 boots slower if you set a solid background color

#33

Post by a2128 » Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 9:56 PM UTC

Over on the Linux side, I installed Vanilla OS recently and it has a Samba service (nmbd.service) as a bootup dependency, which waits for a non-loopback IPv4 interface to be available. So if you're on a laptop which is not connected to WiFi, it will just hang for 90 seconds on the bootup screen before systemd decides that service has failed to start and moves on

Re: Windows 7 boots slower if you set a solid background color

#34

Post by _nalply » Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 9:57 PM UTC

ClassyJacket wrote: post #29

gulikoza wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows before some version (maybe before XP?) only supported BMP wallpapers. BMP is uncompressed, a 1024x768 24-bit BMP is 2.25MB. That could be 7% of the 32MB system RAM and if the image got paged out - you were looking at it being redrawn line by line...yeah, I'm not doing that :)

I mean, you have to uncompress an image to display it anyway, so it would've made no difference.

This assumes that memory for the system and the graphics card is shared.

Re: Windows 7 boots slower if you set a solid background color

#35

Post by Bluecobra » Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 9:58 PM UTC

LeoPanthera wrote: post #2

This reminds me of how in Windows 95, installers would complete quicker if you constantly moved the mouse, but would take longer if it was still.

I seem to recall this causing buffer overruns/bad CD-Rs if you did this with the old 1x/2x CD burners.

Re: Windows 7 boots slower if you set a solid background color

#36

Post by SirMaster » Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 9:59 PM UTC

PlunderBunny wrote: post #8

Hands up all the people that used computers before desktop pictures were a thing and still set the desktop to a solid colour because “it will draw faster and use less memory.”

I just use solid black cause it's less distracting than anything else for me.

Re: Windows 7 boots slower if you set a solid background color

#37

Post by wavemode » Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 9:59 PM UTC

When I saw the title I assumed this would be a Raymond Chen article...

Re: Windows 7 boots slower if you set a solid background color

#38

Post by dgfitz » Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 10:00 PM UTC

znpy wrote: post #21

dgfitz wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I discovered a bug in a microsoft software installer where it would hang unless you moved the mouse over the progress bar. Discovered this when trying to use a java api to make silent installers for programs that didn't have them. The solution was to use the java api to move the mouse back and forth over the progress bar.

> The solution was to use the java api to move the mouse back and forth over the progress bar. Oh the memories of playing with java.awt.Robot...

Nailed it.

Re: Windows 7 boots slower if you set a solid background color

#39

Post by theandrewbailey » Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 10:00 PM UTC

gulikoza wrote: post #24

PlunderBunny wrote: post #8

Hands up all the people that used computers before desktop pictures were a thing and still set the desktop to a solid colour because “it will draw faster and use less memory.”

Windows before some version (maybe before XP?) only supported BMP wallpapers. BMP is uncompressed, a 1024x768 24-bit BMP is 2.25MB. That could be 7% of the 32MB system RAM and if the image got paged out - you were looking at it being redrawn line by line...yeah, I'm not doing that :)

Windows 98 introduced Active Desktop, allowing you to use JPG wallpapers. In my experience, enabling Active Desktop would make everything slower, so I always opted to take the RAM hit on BMP wallpapers. It was even better if I could save the BMP in 8-bit and still have it look good.

Re: Windows 7 boots slower if you set a solid background color

#40

Post by lukan » Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 10:01 PM UTC

PlunderBunny wrote: post #8

Hands up all the people that used computers before desktop pictures were a thing and still set the desktop to a solid colour because “it will draw faster and use less memory.”

I mean, I started with Amiga and it had windows. But then DOS was next.

But I always used black as the background for energy saving. I believe at least there black is more efficient.