Slashdot Log In
Microsoft Considers "Instant On" Windows
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Oct 16, 2008 12:18 PM
from the catch-up dept.
from the catch-up dept.
Barence writes "In what might be a glimpse of things to come in Windows 7, Microsoft is asking customers whether they would be interested in a new 'Instant-on' version of Windows. 'We would like your feedback on a new concept,' the Microsoft survey states. 'The Instant On experience is different from "Full Windows" because it limits what activities you can do and what applications you can have access to.' Sounds interesting but hardly new: Asus and Dell have produced laptops that provide swift access to apps and data using Linux subsystems."
Related Stories
[+]
Mobile: E17, Slimmed Down For Cell Phones 166 comments
twitter writes "Want to run Enlightenment on your cell phone? The Rasterman's recent efforts bring E17 to Open Moko FreeRunner and Treo 650: 'According to the Rasterman, when used with his updated illume stack and new Elementary widget set, E17 can now run in just 32MB of RAM, on an ARM9 processor clocked at 317MHz. To prove it, he is distributing a Linux kernel and E17/Illume/Elementary stack for Palm's Treo650. The stack can be launched from PalmOS without touching the device's flash storage, he says.' While Microsoft fumbles with limited 'instant on,' GNU/Linux rules the embedded world and that's the only thing going in the IT market right now."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
My opinion (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:My opinion (Score:5, Funny)
In all honesty, I love the multiple minutes it takes to bring up windows now. Instant on would be a detriment.
Oh my God, the fucking Comcast turtle posts to Slashdot.
Parent
Re:My opinion (Score:5, Funny)
"Instant On" Would be the worst thing EVER!!!
Windows is a great excuse to get up, get some coffee or tea, and spend the first 15 minutes of your day doing NOTHING.
Parent
Re:My opinion (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:My opinion (Score:5, Informative)
Me, for one. Even new, my laptop took at least 5 minutes to load it up. My work computers are cluttered with stuff the IT guy put on it and usually has to restart at least once during the boot process. I don't have administrator status and wouldn't know what I'm doing anyway.
I think most of us users would agree that spending more time figuring out how to get our computers to load in less than 5 minutes would be a waste of more time. I would definitely prefer it if my computer turned on instantly without having to tinker around with it and likely break it.
(Note that I'm not asking for advice here, I don't want to mess with it and am fine with how my computers work right now.)
Parent
Re:My opinion (Score:4, Interesting)
Funny but true. I turn on my computer. Go start a cup of coffee in the brew machine. Come back and type in my password. Go finish making my coffee. Chit-chat with some of my co-workers. When I return to my desk the Windows desktop is finally responsive even though it appeared about 2 minutes previously. Finally I load Outlook and that takes another two minutes.
So, 5-10 minutes of my day every day is spent waiting for Windows. That's 40 hours a year. Microsoft owes my company 1 week of my salary. If they were forced to pay, they'd have to raise their prices for windows and office a whole hell of a lot to be profitable.
Granted some of this is a function of hardware, login scripts that MS has no control over, etc, etc, etc, but it is a fun thought experiment.
Parent
Yes because as we all know... (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously is there anyone on
Jesus this is like Digg more and more everyday.
OK bitches mod me down now.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Instant on UI (Score:5, Funny)
The UI for the new "Instant-On Windows" is a black screen with the text "C:\>".
Re:Instant on UI (Score:5, Funny)
How cute, an emoticon of a frowning bald guy with a goatee! What does it mean?
Parent
Re:Instant on UI (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe it means Steve Ballmer grew a goatee?
Parent
Re:Instant on UI (Score:5, Funny)
And if you choose A, you'll get three pop-ups:
"Are you sure you want to boot to application? Yes/No"
"Windows needs your permission to use this program: Windows. If you do not trust the source do not use this program. This program can potentially harm your computer. Allow/Cancel"
"Confirm boot-up to Windows: Yes/No"
Parent
BSOD=Instant Off (Score:3, Funny)
MS finally got around to complementing their Instant Off feature!
Kudos to them!
Why give an option? (Score:5, Insightful)
Certainly there must be a way to offer these "instant on" apps while the rest of the subsystems load in the background. And if that's true then there's no need for an option, just always do it. It sounds like it's only an all-or-nothing proposition because they're copying the way others are currently doing it.
Re:Why give an option? (Score:5, Funny)
"...because they're copying the way others are currently doing it."
because they're innovating the way others are currently doing it.
Parent
Nope. (Score:5, Insightful)
Instant on is useless if you can't do everything you want; which is what this is.
How about an don't need to reboot version?
Well, that explains it all again (Score:4, Insightful)
Easy Lazy Instant-On/Off... (Score:5, Interesting)
Boot the system. Now snapshot a memory image (a'la hybernate).
Now for "instant on", set up the page table and start running, and in the background, lazily swap in the rest of the memory. Anything you need immediately gets paged from disk, and the rest of the state gets swept up over the next 30 seconds.
Also, in the background, do "lazy write" as well: Any page that is stable for >X seconds but the disk is still active, write it out, so that going back to sleep (rehibernating) can be fast as well.
Re:Easy Lazy Instant-On/Off... (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, if Windows hibernation operated anything like Linux hibernation, it would work a lot better.
For reference, Linux hibernation doesn't bother writing non-writable memory pages to the hibernation file. So the hibernation file is much smaller compared to Windows. (Which is why Linux can hibernate to a swap file.)
But this is because Linux can 'swap' from the original executable file into memory. So when it unhibernates, it 'unswaps' most of the programs from their original location, only loading the data segments from the swap file.
Of course, a good portion of the program is already in swap, so what actually happens is that all data segments not in the swap file are written to it, with as much executable segments overwritten as needed to fit those in. It is very very fast.
As opposed to Windows, which sits down and writes out all of physical memory to another file, and then has to load it all back in.(It might even write out 'clean' memory pages that are already in the swap file and unchanged since they were loaded back in memory, but I bet MS is smarter than that.)
Granted, Linux still has to, eventually, load all the programs into memory too, but it can load them in via 'swap', which is fairly invisible to the end user.
Parent
priorities (Score:4, Funny)
You have installed a new 'Instant On'(tm) aware application. Do you want to reboot in order for the change to take effect?
[Reboot Now] [Remind me every 2 minutes] [Go away but reboot without another warning in rand(5,10) minutes]
Re:Finally some progress... (Score:4, Funny)
No, the Blue Screen is the "Instant Off" feature.
Parent
Re:Finally some progress... (Score:4, Insightful)
I was actually kind of excited when I read the headline here. I thought maybe they were going to propose bringing up the full OS "instantly." This limited OS thing doesn't seem particularly useful to me. My Dell laptop already has an "instant on" media player thing, and I never use it.
Parent
Next Windows should be Windows Verde (Score:5, Interesting)
The green os. 12-18% better power savings for 'always-on' desktops. Sell it to the CFO, not the CTO, and leverage half the marketing budget to the Windows Green campaign. Don't bother with other features or capabilities. They are unneeded, and do nothing to drive adoption or deployment. (Sorry, feature teams.)
Parent
Green for Windows Verde, then brown for ... (Score:5, Funny)
Presumably the box and ads would be green, too? Then maybe they could have a color-coded release scheme, instead of the letters and numbers used to date. A green campaign for Windows Verde, followed by a brown campaign for the upgrade to Windows Merde! :D
Cheers,
Parent
Re:Next Windows should be Windows Verde (Score:5, Interesting)
You are forgetting the benefits of instant login machines. Instant on and instant login saves 5-15 minutes per day of user time. GEICO used to insist that their employees were logged in and ready to take calls when their shifts started. This got them a class-action lawsuit over the non-paid work and overtime accrued by their phone reps. (are your company's practices as unfair?)
Parent
Re:Next Windows should be Windows Verde (Score:4, Insightful)
Too bad they didn't use the BIOS or Wake-on-LAN to turn the PC 10 minutes before your shift starts.
Parent
Re:Next Windows should be Windows Verde (Score:5, Insightful)
I imagine in most cases it's the login rather than the boot itself that takes the time....
Parent
Re:Next Windows should be Windows Verde (Score:4, Insightful)
Mod parent up. Booting up an XP machine is often a lot faster than the time it takes to login, and wait for the OS to become responsive as it loads all the startup crap.
Parent
Re:Hype and Power management failure. (Score:5, Insightful)
After reading your journal entry, I'm a little confused on how you believe Microsoft "intentionally sabotaged" power management under Linux? Of all the evidence presented in the Iowa case, surely you have something more specific than an email that proves nothing at all other than Bill Gates' reluctance to release something for free?
Also, if your claim that Microsoft somehow crippled ACPI (and/or APM) to hurt Linux... how come ACPI works as well (or as badly, depending on your hardware) as it does on Windows? Specifically, if Microsoft, *BSD and Linux all implement the same open standard, how is that intentional sabotage by "M$"?
And, going back to your journal entry, I see you never did reply to any of the posts that challenge your interpretation of this problem. Why is that?
Parent
Re:Uptime... (Score:5, Funny)
System Up Time: 0 Days, 21 Hours, 32 Minutes, 58 Seconds
Windows Update :( Not "off" but restart.
Parent
Re:Uptime... (Score:5, Interesting)
System Up Time: 0 Days, 21 Hours, 32 Minutes, 58 Seconds
Windows Update :( Not "off" but restart.
Hm. I run both Windows and Mac. I can't remember the last time I did any update to a Mac that didn't require a restart. It's really pretty annoying.
Windows has gotten much better about not requiring restarts for updates. A huge change from its Windows 95/98 and NT days.
Parent
Re:Uptime... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
If you wanted an uptime contest... (Score:5, Insightful)
But I can think of plenty of reasons to turn a notebook off. For example, a kernel update (we get those a lot in Fedora). Or a hardware upgrade. Or a low battery. Or extended storage. Or, if you are using a dual-boot system, to switch OSes.
Parent
Re:If you wanted an uptime contest... (Score:5, Funny)
FreeBSD box :) up 465 days, 1:48, 1 user, load averages: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
Parent
Re:If you wanted an uptime contest... (Score:4, Interesting)
My Ubuntu machine has uptimes that are about 30-90 days, which is entirely based on new kernel releases. I've never had an unintended reboot (e.g. from a freeze or crash).
(Yes, there are methods [slashdot.org] of updating the kernel without rebooting... but most people with massive uptimes seem to achieve it not by using these tricks but rather by not touching the box.)
Parent
Re:If you wanted an uptime contest... (Score:5, Funny)
I see your FreeBSD and raise you, um . . . FreeBSD
su-2.05$ uptime 10:57AM up 737 days, 1:11, 11 users, load averages: 0.01, 0.07, 0.07
You guys are all weak. Windows Vista Ultimate:
11:03:42 up 1010 days, 8:11, 1 user, load average: 0.99, 0.99, 0.99
I'm almost completely booted up now!
Parent
Re:If you wanted an uptime contest... (Score:5, Funny)
I'd tell you my OpenVMS uptime but it would be awkward and uncomfortable to see you cry.
Parent
Re:If you wanted an uptime contest... (Score:4, Funny)
I'd tell you my OpenVMS uptime but it would be awkward and uncomfortable to see you cry.
Slashdot: Where uptime is considered the equivalent of your penis size. :-)
Parent
Re:If you wanted an uptime contest... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:If you wanted an uptime contest... (Score:5, Funny)
I can't whip it out AND be close enough to the keyboard to type.
Parent
Re:Uptime... (Score:5, Interesting)
Because I have a secondary monitor to the left of my Microsoft Windows Vista laptop. Why is that an issue?
- Because after undocking, Microsoft Outlook insists on opening on that (non-existent) monitor.
- Because after re-docking, Microsoft Windows insists on logically placing my external monitor to the RIGHT of my Laptop, and swapping the screens that the start bar and sidebar show up on.
- Because after undocking, carrying my laptop to the conference room and plugging it into the projector, all kinds of weird things happen.
That's why I shutdown daily.
Parent
Re:Uptime... (Score:5, Insightful)
The only practical way this will ever work is coercing hardware manufacturers to stick to more specific standards. In practice, ACPI hasn't solved it.
Parent
Nothing new here....Headlights. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Why is it that Microsoft has no original ideas of their own?"
One could very well ask FOSS the same question. Any takers?
"The worse part of this whole thing is, Microsoft convinces the public that their idea is something new!!!"
Like Apple?
Parent
FOSS is innovation - just a different kind (Score:5, Insightful)
People always claim that FOSS (usually they just mean Linux, and in particular the KDE and GNOME desktops) just copies Microsoft and/or Apple, so "where's the innovation".
Well, this is where. FOSS made it possible for Asus and Dell to think about instant on computing. With Windows, you'd only have it if Microsoft came up with the idea. With Linux, anyone is free to come up with the idea. Even people not associated with Linux development per se.
That's what open source innovation is about. Providing the freedom to innovate. Yes Linux is still playing catchup (to a limited extent these days) in matching mainstream desktop functionality and in keeping up with all the closed de-facto 'standards' that keep appearing due to the fact that the marketplace is still a heavily distorted Monopoly dominated one.
So don't expect a new desktop paradigm (which most people probably don't even want). But expect a host of new devices (EeePC, Android, TiVo, etc) made possible by the true open source innovation - freedom to reuse.
Parent
Re:Nothing new here....Headlights. (Score:5, Informative)
"One could very well ask FOSS the same question. Any takers?"
You can ask but I guarantee you that FOSS has more original ideas then Microsoft.
"Like Apple?"
Apple at least embraces the open source community and plays an active role in it.
Apple embraces the open source community with the most locked down systems and electronics made by any vendor not working on a defense contract. That must be a tight embrace.
Parent
Re:Wow! What a novel idea! (Score:5, Informative)
Right, because this was all about Microsoft claiming a new idea. Slashdot retards attack!!!
I know this is Slashdot, but you could at least try to RTFA:
We would like your feedback on a new concept...The concept is called 'Instant On'. 'Instant On' takes your computer from being completely powered down or 'turned off' to being usable for a few specific activities in a very short amount of time.
Quick! Slashdot Microsoft apologists to the rescue!
Parent
Re:What an original idea - NOT! (Score:4, Insightful)
No one said it was an original idea.
Does it need to be an original idea for them to implement it? Are only original ideas worth adding to an OS?
Parent
Re:What an original idea - NOT! (Score:4, Insightful)
"Does it need to be an original idea for them to implement it?"
Only if it is Microsoft - the bar is higher for them because nobody likes the company.
Parent
Re:What an original idea - NOT! (Score:5, Informative)
No one said it was an original idea.
Does it need to be an original idea for them to implement it? Are only original ideas worth adding to an OS?
Nobody, that is, except Microsoft in the actual survey. From TFA:
"We would like your feedback on a new concept," the Microsoft survey states, according to a leaked version sent to Engadget.
Parent
Re:Sounds like MinWin (Score:4, Informative)
Try end it all [google.com]. It doesnt affect boot time, you do a normal boot and then run end-it-all, but its great for games, you get more fps and, more important, less crashes.
Parent