There will be a mini-deluge of comparisons in a bid to make Windows 8 look better, and the most popular topic will be speed. This is the boot time result from Adrian Kingsley-Hughes’ tests recently..

taken from here.. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/windows-8-consumer-preview-vs-windows-7-benchmarked/19927

OK.. using Bootracer, just as AKH did, here are my results. First, Windows 8

This was to the Windows 8 desktop, and it must be noted that ViStart was blocked, and had to be started separately. It took a further 8 seconds before the ‘full’ desktop opened ready for use. Also note that Windows 8 is NOT running all of the start-up items which are part of my production Windows 7 installation. On the other side, it does boot from a slightly slower hard drive, so I will allow an 8 second period for that.

And now for Windows 7..

Not bad, eh, for the the one on its way out.

Windows 7 wins not only because it is quicker off the mark but also because I have all that I normally run right in front me plus the capacity to easily access everything else.

My times are different to AKH’s times on two counts. His machine is higher spec than mine by quite a margin, and I am running one installation which is in full production guise and the other which is not to far off. My times are real world times.

I could speed both up by reducing the amount of hardware inside the box which has to initialise, and knock off all start-up items, but that wouldn’t be real world anymore, would it..

I haven’t run any of the other times because I don’t have the time in the day to do it, access to all of the various test applications, and a life away from the keyboard which requires attention now and again. This is my real world.

Now, if I was to be paid to run the tests, that would be a different story, but we are talking real world here.. .