Gadgetopia

Hmm... it takes more than 2 or 3 seconds to boot from bios, so most likely it refers to some non-existant hardware.

Or maybe Vista's shutdown is more like a sleep mode, with its last known state being saved to disk or some sort of NVRAM.

Another big plus;

You'll also shut down and restart your computer less often by using the New Sleep state...

Not to brag, but that's something that has been possible with Apple computers since, oh... about 1993. My PowerBook is rarely shut down; I close the lid, it goes to sleep. I open the lid, it wakes up and is useable within seconds.

On a recent trip, a woman across the aisle from me was using an XP laptop and must've shut down & restarted the thing four times between Sioux Falls and Chicago. I was wondering why she didn't just put it to sleep; I guess that isn't possible with XP.

Windows does have sleep. It also has hibernate which allows the computer to be removed from power, but still be restored to the same state as you left it. In other words, when you Apple notebook users run out of battery, you have to make sure to save everything and shut down, whereas we Windows users just hibernate, switch batteries, turn it back on and keep on working.

Yeah, I use sleep and hibernate all the time. I don't know if Vista is talking about those modes, but they're been in Windows for ages too.

If it's already part of WinXP, then why even mention "the New Sleep state" in the marketing hype about Vista?

And was that lady on the plane just being stupid with her XP laptop?

Not everyone knows everything about computers. I believe Hibernate is off by default. This new sleep state seems to be some kind of merger between a sleep and a hibernate. So fast sleep/restore with removed power source? Who knows. I believe it will be better. It better be...

A couple of comments about the comments:

I have never had my Apple laptop's battery die once I put it in sleep mode. Now I know hibernate used no power but you really only need to sustain the laptop for a few hours until you get back home.

Also, I have never had any troubles coming out of sleep mode with my Apple laptop. However, with both the Dell and Fujitsu laptops I have I can not trust sleep mode at all, probably 30% of the time it will not turn back on properly after being asleep.

Hibernate works very well, but I still had problems once in awhile where it would fail to load the saved state which becomes quite irritating when you know there is important information that is going to be lost as a result.

So maybe the big news is that Windows Vista's sleep mode works reliably now?

Hibernation (disabled) is often quite slow. Especially when you're using it from battery. It sometimes takes up to 2 minutes to just save. I have no idea whether it is due to amount of memory or due to the CPU speed.

Stand-by (or the current sleep mode) is most of the time fast. Although there are moments that I get "Resume Failure" (I have a Toshiba Satellite Pro M30) and other times the screen stays blank for a "long" time.

I too have seen many people on the planes from Sioux Falls to Minneapolis, Chicago, or elsewhere with Windows laptops that can not sleep. I have been one of them, as I use my PowerBook for graphics and photography, and a HP laptop for CAD work. My PowerBook has only run out of battery power a couple of times while in sleep (and I was away a LONG time), while my 1.7 GHz Centrino Laptop with 1 GB memory and a 7200 rpm HD takes over two minutes to "hibernate" and when it wakes up, which it often doesn't, it is not useable for another couple of minutes. In the same time it takes me to boot up my Windows box, I can pull out my Mac, write a quick e-mail, and put it back to sleep.

Dave said: “when you Apple notebook users run out of battery, you have to make sure to save everything and shut down”

The Mac can stay in sleep mode much longer than Windows can stay in suspend. When the battery gets low (after 1-2 days) the Mac won’t turn on until you plug it in — but when you do plug it in, it starts up immediately with no hibernate delay. I suppose at some point the battery would die entirely, but I’ve left my Mac sleeping for up to a week with no problems.

I can hibernate with my Windows 98 machine! Get with the times people

" In other words, when you Apple notebook users run out of battery, you have to make sure to save everything and shut down"

Another Windoze know-it-all. Stop spreading false info.

All Apple laptops can swap batteries when put to sleep. NO NEED to shut down. NO NEED to save. Pop in a new battery and wake from sleep in under two seconds. Been doin' it for years.

Pop in a new battery and wake from sleep in under two seconds. Been doin’ it for years.

Very true. You have up to two minutes with an Apple laptop in sleep mode to swap batteries.

Not sure about the two minutes. I have a 12" powerbook, and was told that they removed the internal battery for size considerations. The last time I tried to swap batteries without shutting down, it had to reboot.

I may give this another try, but I think only the 15"+ books can handle it.

OK. Standby puts every thing in memory. Hibernate puts everything on hardrive. Sleep (only in Vista) does both.

Comment from the future

no, vista is a long ass bitch to load up, longer than XP.

Fun fact.

Trying to find some way to do a quick boot or something.

Hmmm. I forgot about this thread. Anybody have some real-world experience with Vista boot times? Is the posted quote at all accurate?

I put my macbook to sleep all the time, and very rarely shutdown...

It does not lose everything when the battery does run out - a short time before the battery totally dies it drops into 'safe sleep' which is more like the windows hibernate mode (and copies the memory to the hard disk).

When loading from safe sleep its not quite as instant as normal sleep, but still probably quicker than most pc's display the bios screen for.

you really do know that sleep in vista is different from hibernate in xp? get a dictionary... i mean seriously guys this hasnt been around for ages.

in XP hibernate took about 3-4second to hibernate, then about 5-10sec to resume to full function.. im perfectly happy with those times.

in Vista hibernate takes about 3-4s to hibernate which was expected, Resume took 103 seconds (i timed it... 1 minute 43 seconds). this is on battery power, where my PC is in power save mode.

I use a thinkpad x31 1.0ghz 512mb. powersave steps speed way down but in XP this was perfectly fine.

I use hibernate because on power save mode it goes 4-6 hours on a charge, so i use it at a coffee shop for a couple hours, then let it hibernate and a few days later use it again, then again a couple days later, without needing to plug it in and charge in between

in XP 'stand by' the battery would run dry in that time, in Vista 'sleep' it would lose charge for 3 hours (slo rate tho) then hibernate, and id still have a 103 second startup.

sleep would be useful if i constantly turned the laptop on and off all day, but i only do that every few days and have a desktop for the rest.

i might go back to XP just because of this long start up from hibernation.