Microsoft has revealed that Windows 8 will boot in just 8 short seconds and to prove it, the company has posted a video of the upcoming OS doing just that.
In a lengthy blog post explaining the whys and wherefores of how Microsoft teased the software into an 8 second boot-up, Gabe Aul explains that the new solution is "a fast start-up mode which is a hybrid of traditional cold boot and resuming from hibernate."
It's all down to hibernating the kernel session rather than closing it down completely and starting it back up again.
Hibernate that kernel
In addition, the development team added a new feature that uses all the cores in a multi-core system in parallel; this splits the work of reading the hibernating kernel file and decompressing the contents - so both can be done at once, hence a faster load time.
Aul addes, "Another important thing to note about Windows 8's fast startup mode is that, while we don't do a full "Plug & Play" enumeration of all drivers, we still do initialize drivers in this mode.
"Those of you who like to cold boot in order to "freshen up" drivers and devices will be glad to know that is still effective in this new mode, even if not an identical process to a cold boot."
Want to see the mega speedy boot up with your own fair eyes? Check out the video below (we assume Microsoft wouldn't be so sneaky as to cut a few frames out…).
