There are a few reasons why computers can take a while to startup. One reason is that the computer needs time to find and start up the operating system. This process can take a few minutes or even hours. Another reason is that the computer may be trying to load some of its software before it can start working on your request.
With the newer, more powerful hardware and improved operating systems that we have available to use these days, why does it still take as long as it does to fully boot a computer up each time?
Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites.
The Question
SuperUser reader kosinix wants to know why computers are unable fully boot up instantly:
Why are computers unable to fully boot up instantly? With the better, more powerful hardware that is available now, and the continuing improvement of operating systems, one would think that computers could fully boot up a lot quicker than they do these days.
The Answer
SuperUser contributor ckhan has the answer for us:
While boot up times have definitely improved in the past few years, and will continue to improve as time goes on, there is, and will always be a lot going on ‘behind the screen’ every time you start your favorite computer up.
What is useful to you and me is many millions of steps further down that ‘state machine’. The easiest way for developers to describe that state is to define it in programs, and those programs will always take more than ‘zero time’ to run.
Now you might say: “Fine, but can’t you cache the ‘first-usable-state’ and start there?” And you could, and it does. It’s (roughly) what resume from ‘Sleep’ is, and which is why it’s not very fair, I think, to “exclude” resume from a discussion of improving boot times.
Have something to add to the explanation? Sound off in the comments. Want to read more answers from other tech-savvy Stack Exchange users? Check out the full discussion thread here.
