Here's an observation that will doubtless raise some questions. Windows
8 will not use mirror drivers. Big deal? I think maybe yes. Why? Simple.
Screen readers such as JAWS and Window-Eyes rely on mirror drivers to
work. I cannot help but wonder how windows screen readers will adapt. It
would indeed be interesting if the big two cannot adapt but NVDA can and
will.
Now, you might be surprised that I, a Mac user, would raise such a
point. Well, let us just say that I chose not to resist.
Sincerely,
The Constantly Barefooted Ray!!!
Now a very proud and happy Mac user!!!
Skype name:
barefootedray
Facebook:
facebook.com/ray.foretjr.1<http://m.facebook.com/ray.foretjr.1?refid=0>
On Sep 12, 2011, at 10:14 AM, chris hallsworth wrote:
Microsoft has a surprise for users tired of waiting forever while
their computers boot up. It will take less than 10 seconds for a
Windows 8 PC to go from powered down to the start screen, according to
a Microsoft video demonstration. The speedy boot is thanks to a new
hybrid system that mixes processes used in cold boots and hibernation
mode. Microsoft showed off the new functionality in yet another blog
post on its Building Windows 8 blog.
The less than 10 second boot time Microsoft displayed was on a laptop
with a Core i7-2620M Sandy Bridge processor, 8GB RAM and a 160GB
solid-state drive. Results using other hardware may vary. Microsoft
tested 30 PCs comparing Windows 8 fast startup times to Windows 7 cold
boots. The most dramatic drop in time was for a PC (specs were
undisclosed) that went from a more than 70 second cold boot time in
Windows 7 to about 20 seconds on a Windows 8 fast startup.
Thanks to the influence of tablets and smartphones, users are more
accustomed than ever to having instant-on access to their devices.
This can make it feel as though you've stepped back into the Dark Ages
while you wait a minute or two for your PC to boot. Nevertheless, more
than half of all PC users (57 percent of desktop users and 45 percent
of laptop users) opt to turn their devices off instead of letting them
go into sleep or hibernation mode, from which the computer can resume
much faster, according to Microsoft data.
Reasons for preferring shutdown vary, Microsoft says, from wanting to
save on power to preferring to start a session fresh with no leftover
processes from earlier (I suspect that another group of people avoid
sleep and hibernate because it never works quite properly on their PCs).
But even though a slight majority prefer to shut down, many Windows PC
users do use sleep and hibernate modes instead of cold boots. In
Windows 8, Microsoft wanted to create a shutdown process that would
appeal to both types of users, by achieving three basic goals: nearly
zero power draw when the computer is shut off, a fresh session after
boot, and a quick startup time.
To reach these targets, Windows 8's default shutdown mode performs
what it refers to as a "session 0" hibernation. Basically, the
computer shuts down normally, except that it saves the Windows kernel
session to a hibernation file prior to shutting down. In Windows 7,
the kernel session gets shut down completely--the kernel is the OS's
core component that acts as a link between applications and data
processing at the hardware level. Storing the kernel session results
in a small hibernation file that the system can read back into memory
in much less time than it takes to start everything up from a
traditional cold boot, according to Microsoft.
The new faster startup time also takes advantage of multicore systems
by using all of the cores in parallel to speed the work of reading the
hibernation file. Microsoft says that this multicore process will help
your system resume from regular hibernate mode more quickly as well.
The Windows maker found that PCs with a Unified Extensible Firmware
Interface (UEFI) instead of a traditional BIOS tend to achieve faster
boot times under the new system, too.
If you who need a traditional cold shutdown to install new hardware on
your PC or if you want one because you like it the old way, Microsoft
allows you to revert to the old shutdown method either permanently
(through a setting in the user interface--probably in the Control
Panel, though Microsoft didn't explain this fully) or as a one-time
occurrence from the command prompt.
Windows isn't the only PC operating system to support speedy boots.
Google's browser-only Chromebooks have fast boot times, and Apple's
MacBook Air line also claims instant-on functionality.
If you can't get enough Windows 8 news, check out PCWorld on Tuesday,
September 13 when Microsoft is expected to provide even more details
about its forthcoming OS during the company's BUILD conference.
Windows 8 Fast Boot:
--
Chris Hallsworth
Sent from Thunderbird
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