Mary Jo Foley links to this ComputerWorld article that aggregates an online conversation people are having about whether Vista boots and shutsdown slower than XP.
My experiences are mixed in this area. I’ll get to them in a minute. However, a word of caution here–at least in terms of my equipment–many of my systems do not have final or robust drivers, so personally I’m not of a mind to take my Vista boot times that seriously right now. But that’s just my experience.
What have I seen in terms of boot times? Actually quite a variety. I have some systems that seem to boot fast and others that seem to boot a few minutes after eternity. Again, I’m suspect of the drivers. In terms of shutdown times, it does seem like it takes longer, though I haven’t tried to see if my impressions are correct.
In terms of sleep mode, I have a mixed bag here too. Sometimes it seems to work, sometimes not. The other day, for instance, I had to stuff my UMPC into my backpack before I had a chance to shut it down. I knew better, but I had no choice. Anyway, I figured I would manually turn it off in a couple minutes. Of course, I forgot. Thirty plus minutes later I pulled out the UMPC–fan blowing at full speed with everything running at full heat. Ooops. I’ve also had my full-sized Tablets stay awake without going to sleep while in the middle of development. I guess I can see why, but then again, I wonder if this isn’t a driver issue.