Could the '8' in Windows 8 represent how many seconds it takes Microsoft's newest operating system to boot?
A new video, posted on the Building Windows 8 blog, shows that the much-anticipated, re-designed followup to Windows 7 can boot from power-off to start screen on a notebook PC in under ten seconds. This would make it--as many of you running Windows 7 know--much, much faster than the current Windows.
Check this out:
Windows 8 is able to boot so quickly, according to the blog post, by putting the "kernel sesion" into hibernate mode rather than closing it down completely (as happens on current Windows machines). Rather than having to completely boot back up from nothing, your computer will now essentially come back from hibernate mode after you power down. For a full, more technical explanation of how Windows currently shuts down versus how it will shut down in Windows 8, read the Microsoft engineer's explanation here.
The cynics out there will say that it's a good thing this new Windows boots so quickly since you have to restart it so often, and the blog post even mentions that the team is working on "reducing the number of required restarts due to patching running code" for their updated OS. Still, if the Microsoft engineering team can replicate the speed shown in this demo on a wide scale, then Windows 8 just got a great new feature.
The Building Windows 8 blog launched in August and offers users gradual sneak peeks at the development of the OS.
Microsoft debuted Windows 8 at AllThingsD's annual conference in June 2011, and the interface appeared radically different from what Windows users are used to. What was shown off at that conference resembled the Windows Phone mobile interface much more than it did the more familiar Windows for PC. When it launches, Windows 8 will be optimized for touch-and-slide gestures on tablets and smartphones (Mac's Lion OS X, too, has been "iOS-ified," taking on several touch-and-slide capabilities familiar to iPhone users).
For now, there is no word on a release date for Windows 8, though Steve Sinofsky, President of Windows and Windows Live, told Engadget in June that they were set to release a new Windows build once every two to three years: Windows 7 was released on October 22, 2009.
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