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Microsoft details Windows 8's pre-boot world, helps you skip the F8 F8 F8 routine
Microsoft has been going into very exacting detail as to how Windows 8 works, but one area it hasn't explored much is what happens before you even see the Start screen. As user experience manager Chris Clark notes, the days of mashing F8 repeatedly to reach a pre-boot configuration are (mostly) over: you can invoke it either through an "advanced startup" in settings, through Start menu shortcuts or, if your PC is truly sick, let it show automatically. At least on systems blessed with UEFI instead of an aging BIOS, you'll get a lot more to tinker with as well, including going straight to the command prompt, recovering from a system image or booting from external storage. The emphasis on choosing your environment before you hit the power button is virtually necessary. A Windows 8 PC with a solid-state drive leaves just a 200-millisecond slice of time for any user input, and Microsoft would rather not have users caught in an infinite loop of restarting their systems as they unsuccessfully try to boot from USB drives. You'll likely discover the pre-boot space first-hand when the OS ships later this year, but for now you can check the source for more.
Windows 8 to feature drastically reduced boot time, shown off in video
Watch the above video closely, because you might just miss the moment: according to the latest post on MSDN's Building Windows 8 blog, Microsoft's next-gen desktop OS will see a hugely improved boot time thanks to a clever technique. Rather than closing both the user session and the kernel session like in a traditional shutdown, Windows 8 will preserve the kernel session on the disk, thus creating a "hiberfile" that's much smaller than that of the usual Windows hibernation -- see the diagram after the break for a clearer idea. The result? An amazingly fast system bootup -- even with the battery removed to begin with -- that claims to be 30 to 70 percent faster than most systems tested by Microsoft. We're itching to test this feature on an SSD ourselves, but until then, you can head over to MSDN's blog for the full technical explanation.
Video: SSD-infused Eee PC 1000 boots in 30 seconds
Even with Express Gate installed, it took ASUS' Eee Box a good 35 seconds before an application could be used. On this particular Eee PC 1000, it took around half a minute for the entire system to load. The secret? An ultra-speedy 40GB SSD packed within. Hop on past the break for proof of the feat, but don't blink for an extraordinarily long period of time.[Thanks, Roman]
