9 ms·

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 kind

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 reflexes used to a Linux CLI.

samplatt 5y ago
>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 MacOS just kept abstracting themselves from my tactile sensation farther and farther away...
- kroltan 5y ago
  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.
  - skydhash 5y ago
    I started with XP with a pentium 2 then move to a pentium 4. It ran perfectly on both. It started even faster than my Linux Mint installation.
    - josephg 5y ago
      That’s wild. I remember when windows XP came out I was amazed it was so large. The OS was 300 megabytes or something - and it took up a significant portion of my computer’s hard drive. Despite all of Microsoft’s claims about “media enhancements” it seemed horribly bloated and ugly. It was the embarrassing stepchild of windows 2000 - which I still adore. How times have changed!
      - nix23 5y ago
        Windows2000 was the best windows ever, from the speed to the look, the simplicity...just perfect.
        mobilio 5y ago
        Mine was NT4... but without DirectX and no games
  - samplatt 5y ago
    To be fair, 3.1 was snappy because it didn't have the layers of security and anti-crashing catches that we now rely on.
    - xtracto 5y ago
      The thing is... I don't care, and I'm sure the original Win 3.1 commenter doesn't care either. I am old enough to have experienced Win 3.1 (and making it slower with the "magic-whatever" software that made animated icons, anyone remember their rabbit/hat logo?). Aaaanyway: Give me a "chrooted/jailed" environment where I have all my "dumb", "no internet" connection apps (Jails are 2000 technology, chroot is older), and be done with it, so that if anyone hacks my machine or if I quadruple-click on that virus it is only going to affect the chroot environment and doesn't see anything else. Truth is, a lot of contemporary commercial OS sluggishness comes from ""features"" that are either some kind of telemetry, or just "security" preventing me (the user) from doing things the the company does not want me to do (like the asinine OSX "feature" of disabling write access to certain parts of MY hard disk by default)
  - speedgoose 5y ago
    I remember XP not being able to paint windows or move the mouse cursor at descent frame-rate under load. It was so bad compared to Mac OS X from the same time.
    - kroltan 5y ago
      Neither does Windows 10, my mouse frequently stutters on the first few minutes after booting, and I don't use any particularly invasive customizations.
  - npteljes 5y ago
    I opened XP on my old 900 mhz pentium 3, and it was just as snappy as you describe yours.
- ksec 5y ago
  That is what I have been banging on about for years. Latency added, not just in Software, but in Hardware as well from Display, Keyboard, Mouse and even Network. The past 20+ years the whole industry nearly went all out on optimising for throughput. Sometimes I look at macOS, Windows 10. Apart from some UI facelift I dont even remember a single user feature that was relevant or important in the past 5 years. Apart from latency added cause of feature bloat The beauty of Gaming is that there are finally some incentives for people to work on the issue. And a video from Microsoft Research on 1ms Latency https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOvQCPLkPt4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOvQCPLkPt4
  - fouc 5y ago
    You reminded me of "Computer latency: 1977-2017" https://danluu.com/input-lag/ https://danluu.com/input-lag/
  - samplatt 5y ago
    >Sometimes I look at macOS, Windows 10. Apart from some UI facelift I dont even remember a single user feature The user "feature" that comes quickest to mind for Windows 10 was the first run of calc.exe showing a popup notification begging for a 5-star rating in the Microsoft Store. The fucking CALCULATOR. Literally the first and most basic function any computer ever had, which has had NO ui changes in the million software and hardware permutations for 70 years, because it's already perfect. Something has gone unfathomably, fundamentally wrong with how Microsoft works internally.
    - mongol 5y ago
      What rating did you give it?
      - samplatt 5y ago
        I gave it one star and left a scathing review. What are they going to do, not include a calculator in the next Windows?
- Wowfunhappy 5y ago
  I'd be curious to know what you think of Haiku, if you've ever tried it.
  - samplatt 5y ago
    Only ever read about BeOS and haven't never heard of Haiku :O
kavalg 5y ago
And it would constantly apply updates and reboot without a prompt.

samplatt 5y ago

>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 MacOS just kept abstracting themselves from my tactile sensation farther and farther away...

kroltan 5y ago
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.
- skydhash 5y ago
  I started with XP with a pentium 2 then move to a pentium 4. It ran perfectly on both. It started even faster than my Linux Mint installation.
  - josephg 5y ago
    That’s wild. I remember when windows XP came out I was amazed it was so large. The OS was 300 megabytes or something - and it took up a significant portion of my computer’s hard drive. Despite all of Microsoft’s claims about “media enhancements” it seemed horribly bloated and ugly. It was the embarrassing stepchild of windows 2000 - which I still adore. How times have changed!
    - nix23 5y ago
      Windows2000 was the best windows ever, from the speed to the look, the simplicity...just perfect.
      - mobilio 5y ago
        Mine was NT4... but without DirectX and no games
- samplatt 5y ago
  To be fair, 3.1 was snappy because it didn't have the layers of security and anti-crashing catches that we now rely on.
  - xtracto 5y ago
    The thing is... I don't care, and I'm sure the original Win 3.1 commenter doesn't care either. I am old enough to have experienced Win 3.1 (and making it slower with the "magic-whatever" software that made animated icons, anyone remember their rabbit/hat logo?). Aaaanyway: Give me a "chrooted/jailed" environment where I have all my "dumb", "no internet" connection apps (Jails are 2000 technology, chroot is older), and be done with it, so that if anyone hacks my machine or if I quadruple-click on that virus it is only going to affect the chroot environment and doesn't see anything else. Truth is, a lot of contemporary commercial OS sluggishness comes from ""features"" that are either some kind of telemetry, or just "security" preventing me (the user) from doing things the the company does not want me to do (like the asinine OSX "feature" of disabling write access to certain parts of MY hard disk by default)
- speedgoose 5y ago
  I remember XP not being able to paint windows or move the mouse cursor at descent frame-rate under load. It was so bad compared to Mac OS X from the same time.
  - kroltan 5y ago
    Neither does Windows 10, my mouse frequently stutters on the first few minutes after booting, and I don't use any particularly invasive customizations.
- npteljes 5y ago
  I opened XP on my old 900 mhz pentium 3, and it was just as snappy as you describe yours.
ksec 5y ago
That is what I have been banging on about for years. Latency added, not just in Software, but in Hardware as well from Display, Keyboard, Mouse and even Network. The past 20+ years the whole industry nearly went all out on optimising for throughput. Sometimes I look at macOS, Windows 10. Apart from some UI facelift I dont even remember a single user feature that was relevant or important in the past 5 years. Apart from latency added cause of feature bloat The beauty of Gaming is that there are finally some incentives for people to work on the issue. And a video from Microsoft Research on 1ms Latency https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOvQCPLkPt4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOvQCPLkPt4
- fouc 5y ago
  You reminded me of "Computer latency: 1977-2017" https://danluu.com/input-lag/ https://danluu.com/input-lag/
- samplatt 5y ago
  >Sometimes I look at macOS, Windows 10. Apart from some UI facelift I dont even remember a single user feature The user "feature" that comes quickest to mind for Windows 10 was the first run of calc.exe showing a popup notification begging for a 5-star rating in the Microsoft Store. The fucking CALCULATOR. Literally the first and most basic function any computer ever had, which has had NO ui changes in the million software and hardware permutations for 70 years, because it's already perfect. Something has gone unfathomably, fundamentally wrong with how Microsoft works internally.
  - mongol 5y ago
    What rating did you give it?
    - samplatt 5y ago
      I gave it one star and left a scathing review. What are they going to do, not include a calculator in the next Windows?
Wowfunhappy 5y ago
I'd be curious to know what you think of Haiku, if you've ever tried it.
- samplatt 5y ago
  Only ever read about BeOS and haven't never heard of Haiku :O

kavalg 5y ago

And it would constantly apply updates and reboot without a prompt.