Why Windows 7 Took Forever To Load If You Had a Solid Background (pcworld.com) 17
An anonymous reader quotes a report from PCWorld: Windows 7 came onto the market in 2009 and put Microsoft back on the road to success after Windows Vista's annoying failures. But Windows 7 was not without its faults, as this curious story proves. Some users apparently encountered a vexing problem at the time: if they set a single-color image as the background, their Windows 7 PC always took 30 seconds to start the operating system and switch from the welcome screen to the desktop.
In a recent blog post, Microsoft veteran Raymond Chen explains the exact reason for this. According to him, a simple programming error meant that users had to wait longer for the system to boot. After logging in, Windows 7 first set up the desktop piece by piece, i.e. the taskbar, the desktop window, icons for applications, and even the background image. The system waited patiently for all components to finish loading and received feedback from each individual component. Or, it switched from the welcome screen to the desktop after 30 seconds if it didn't receive any feedback.
The problem here: The code for the message that the background image is ready was located within the background image bitmap code, which means that the message never appeared if you did not have a real background image bitmap. And a single color is not such a bitmap. The result: the logon system waited in vain for the message that the background has finished loading, so Windows 7 never started until the 30 second fallback activated and sent users to the desktop. The problem could also occur if users had activated the "Hide desktop icons" group policy. This was due to the fact that such policies were only added after the main code had been written and called by an If statement. However, Windows 7 was also unable to recognize this at first and therefore took longer to load.
In a recent blog post, Microsoft veteran Raymond Chen explains the exact reason for this. According to him, a simple programming error meant that users had to wait longer for the system to boot. After logging in, Windows 7 first set up the desktop piece by piece, i.e. the taskbar, the desktop window, icons for applications, and even the background image. The system waited patiently for all components to finish loading and received feedback from each individual component. Or, it switched from the welcome screen to the desktop after 30 seconds if it didn't receive any feedback.
The problem here: The code for the message that the background image is ready was located within the background image bitmap code, which means that the message never appeared if you did not have a real background image bitmap. And a single color is not such a bitmap. The result: the logon system waited in vain for the message that the background has finished loading, so Windows 7 never started until the 30 second fallback activated and sent users to the desktop. The problem could also occur if users had activated the "Hide desktop icons" group policy. This was due to the fact that such policies were only added after the main code had been written and called by an If statement. However, Windows 7 was also unable to recognize this at first and therefore took longer to load.
Interesting (Score:2)
Wouldn't matter today (Score:4, Insightful)
Even if you can see the desktop in less than 30 seconds, Windows is useless for several minutes after startup because it launches a nearly infinite number of I/O-bound processes as soon it starts. This is undoubtedly because each and every development group at Microsoft thinks that their special software goodness simply must run before any other group's software. Best to go get a cup of coffee while you wait for it to stop thrashing.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't recall this being an issue in Win7 either. Or XP. Or 98. Or 95.
Not saying it was the snappiest experience ever, but it was rare for me to need to wait more than 10-15 seconds at most for things to be usable.
Then again I didn't install a giant pile of garbage, and I would remove stuff I didn't need. It was the bloatware that caused the issues for me, not the OS itself.
Re: (Score:2)
On the flip side, NT3.51(or NT4) when a member of a domain, would prompt for login before the system capable of processing the login request...
Re: (Score:2)
Oh my, this has not been an issue for a while now. When I went from spinning rust to SSD Windows 7 was MUCH faster loading as well as overall performance enhanced greatly. I even went from SSD to NVME on a few Windows 7 machines and once again the performance and boot speeds were greatly enhanced. I still have a Windows 7 machine that uses an NVME and I just tried the solid background versus a bitmap, and sure enough, the solid background took much longer to get to the desktop. Now I know why some Windows 7
Re: (Score:2)
Even if you can see the desktop in less than 30 seconds, Windows is useless for several minutes after startup because it launches a nearly infinite number of I/O-bound processes as soon it starts.
This sounds like a *you* problem. Even my shitty work computer gets from cold boot to functional in under 30 seconds. My own desktop does it in closer to 10-15 seconds - and yes, fully functional including all network interfaces up and startup apps loading.
You broke something in your install.
Huh... (Score:3)
I always had a solid color for a backdrop and never noticed this problem. But then, I disabled as many background tasks and scheduled nonsense as possible. For this to be a problem, it might have required a specific combination of factors. My system ran a LOT faster and better with the system maintenance and reporting features disabled.
PS - typing this on a 13-year-old Win7 machine right now.
Re: (Score:2)
You probably never acknowledged the problem while it existed and wrote it off as some peculiarity. It was fixed in a hotfix quite early in Windows 7's world. Unless you used Windows 7 in the first three months of its release you would never have seen the bug.
And no it did not depend on any "nonsense", no need to guess here, the explanation is right there in the link for you to read. In fact the more "nonsense" you disabled the more likely you were to hit the timeout window as Windows was waiting for non-exi
Bug cameoflaged as expected behavior? (Score:2)
Did this bug go unrecognized for so long because nobody realized that a 30-second wait was not the expected behavior?
Privacy (Score:5, Funny)
Can't wait for the "Why Windows 12 Crippled Performance If You Opted Out of Data Collection" behaviour to be reported as a "bug" in ten years.
maybe not in all cases (Score:2)
Huh. Don't remember this, and I usually had a solid colored background. Like another poster said, perhaps it requires a specific combination of factors.
I still have Win7 on my desktop machine but I don't use it anymore. Too much of a road warrior so I got a high powered laptop instead.
Re: (Score:2)
I also don't remember this, and my Desktop was allways set to the std. blue-ish color.
However I suppose this was fixed, along the way, some time before resonable priced SSDs were available, because with SSDs XP and 7 were a super fast experience .. .. I miss that experience.
Re: maybe not in all cases (Score:4, Informative)
You get what you pay for... (Score:1)
Code residing in wallpaper :o (Score:3)
Explains how malware disguised as a
WTF were they thinking? (Score:2)
Code in an image file to indicate it has loaded?
Microsoft hiring Poetering makes sense now.