Must-reads for performance testing Windows 7

Let me guess… you’re thinking it’s time to upgrade from Windows XP or Windows Vista, but there is no budget for the new hardware you’ve come to associate with any operating system migration. Here’s what you do:

First, buzz on over to Daniel Oxley’s Confessions of a Microsoft Consultant blog entry on “Benchmarking Windows 7.” He explains that you can, in fact, compare Windows 7 to Windows XP running on your existing hardware. He points to couple useful guides that you can download: Performance Testing Guide for Windows and, to get your baseline, Benchmarking on Windows XP.

You might need such comparative testing to prove that you are not sacrificing performance for new features and these guides point out some common pitfalls. For instance, you might have noticed that a system might perform better a few days after a new OS is installed, especially when it performs dynamic tuning, and adapts over time to user behavior to increase responsiveness.

More to come,

Mitch

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