Windows slowdown, non mythical answer sought :)

Question

I know there are mythical answers to this, but I am looking for something definitive. Why do windows machines always start off booting up quickly and performing nicely and then by a year later your boot time is ridiculously long and launching programs is much slower. Is is because of programs misbehaving (if so how do i find them), registry changes (whats at fault and how do I clean it), something else?

Most of all, do you really have a meaningful answer or just mythology? As far as I can tell the vast majority of performance advice is mythology, rather than based on a correct understanding, e.g. "I heard so and so appeals to the sql deity of performance" (mythology), rather than, "Well if you look at B-trees and how much hard drive has to be pulled up for this query..." (knowledge).

Some of us use windows every day, and all of us that do experience this, for years now. I feel boggled that I don't know a definitive "here are the main causes" answer off my head, but I don't. Surely university research has been done on this as it affects lots of people daily.

P.S. I stay neutral in operating system holy wars, but if you want to windows bash, please bash with a meaningful answer e.g. "because the kernel is designed to do thus as you can see using so-and-so tools", not "because windows sticks".

Answer 1

The registry grows (along with the list of checks windows does on it), the file allocation table grows, the list of loaded drivers grows, and, importantly, windows and other programs' files that are overwritten on sofware updates tend to migrate to slower, more internal regions of the hard drive (and normal defragmentation won't fix it).

Install windows and your basic programs, defrag, cut your net cable and leave your setup alone, and windows will be pretty stable :-)