The quest to shorten PC boot times

For decades now enthusiasts have tweaked their PC to boot as fast as possible. Whether it’s optimizing your autoexec.bat file, as many users did back in the DOS days, or minimizing the number of apps that load during Windows startup, we’ve all tried it. Hardware enthusiasts will pick up the fastest hard drives, CPUs, and add more RAM all in attempt to shorten load times. 

After years of pre-loading their systems with bloatware, now PC manufacturers appear to be getting in on this. This NY Times story chronicles the race to the instant-on PC. The article quickly highlights applications like DeviceVM’s Splashtop OS, which can be used to quickly get online, load Skype, or watch DVD movies without having to load Windows. ASUS provides the software with many of their high-end motherboards. The NY Times article mentions that Splashtop software is also used on select VoodooPC systems and that HP and Lenovo plan to incorporate the OS on more PCs next year. Phoenix Technologies HyperSpace is another solution that is also discussed. HyperSpace is designed to provide near instant access to common apps like email, instant messaging, Internet browsing, etc while Windows loads in the background. Once Windows has loaded, the user can switch back and forth between OS’s.

Microsoft is also focusing on this issue. The company has vowed to improve Vista startup times as well as Windows 7. The question is, can Microsoft respond to this problem faster than the PC manufacturers? If Microsoft doesn’t, Linux-based alternatives will continue to gain share against Windows.