💾 Archived View for gmi.noulin.net › mobileNews › 3377.gmi captured on 2021-12-05 at 23:47:19. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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The biggest problem I have when running Windows, especially in a corporate
environment, is all of the crapware that doesn't start until I log in. Those
are the programs that decide to do massive tasks as soon as they're started.
They bog down the network connection and thrash the hard drive doing their
startup scans. They make the desktop completely unusable for significant
lengths of time after login.
I suppose the fast boot to a login screen is useful. I'm able to get to the
login screen quickly and log in. Then I can go get my coffee and read the paper
while the startup applications take forever to do whatever it is they are
doing. But it still doesn't solve the core problem of having a computer that is
up and useful to the end user in a reasonable amount of time.
Now, it should be obvious that the blame here is not entirely on Microsoft.
They have no control over what crap the end user (or corporate IT monkeys)
install on the desktop. They can't control what gets started up when the user
logs in. Microsoft has no way to prevent an idiot from writing an anti-virus
package that does a complete system scan (that bogs down the entire system
while it's running) when it is first started by the user. There's nothing
stopping a startup program from waiting for a slow network connection to time
out, causing the entire startup process to basically hang. There's nothing
Microsoft can do to prevent a program to rebuild it's entire search index at
startup, thrashing the disk to the point where the entire system is
unresponsive while it's running.
But Microsoft is not entirely blameless either. The root of the problem was the
decision to make the console the central focus of operation.There is absolutely
no reason why so much of the software has to start up as soon as the user logs
in. There is no reason why it cannot be tied to the startup of the computer.
And if that software was tied to computer startup there would be no reason it
could not be identified for hibernation just like the kernel, resulting in not
only a faster boot time but a faster time to actual usefulness of the desktop.