Traditionally, with each successive version of Windows, startup times have grown longer. Even the steady performance improvements in PC hardware were no match for the bloat of Windows.

With Windows 8, Microsoft decided to ‘improve’ startup performance by fooling users into thinking their computer is completely shut down when in fact it is not. It turns out that shutting down Windows 8 actually puts Windows into a suspended state, in which the current state of Windows is stored on a hard drive, ready to be loaded when the computer is restarted.

This kind of sleep/suspended state has been around for a while, and is most commonly used in portable devices such as laptops. However, there are drawbacks to this in Windows 8. Anyone attempting to boot to a different operating system, from another device (besides the default hard drive), or enter the BIOS setup program, will be unable to do so without resorting to special (hidden) methods. Worse, the classic Windows troubleshooting step of rebooting a computer will no longer accomplish much: any problems in Windows that would previously have been cleared by way of a reboot will persist in Windows 8.

I have no problem with Microsoft improving Windows’ startup performance, and I have no problem with them using sleep states to do that, but hiding what’s really going on is just going to cause a lot of confusion and frustration.