Windows 10 version 19H1 due out in April 2019 promises a speed increase, however we shouldn't forget that V1809 the October 2018 update hasn't made it to people's desktops yet!! The headline relates to the Spectre and Meltdown flaws that appeared in January 2018 and at that time Microsoft's fixes for these problems slowed Computer's down significantly. The older the Computer the greater the slowdown and Windows 7 users were slowed down the most. However, even though Windows 7 users would have the most to gain they will not be getting the speed increase as the Operating system is shortly to enter its final year of extended support. This is just another attempt by Microsoft to get the remaining Windows 7 users to take the plunge and upgrade to Windows 10.
Microsoft have been able to eliminate the areas of their patches that were causing the slowdowns and thus what is described as a 'speed increase' is really just returning the performance that customers had before Spectre and Meltdown were discovered. Mehmet Iyigun who works on the Windows Kernel team at Microsoft offered the following explanation. Microsoft have now enabled 'retpoline' and 'import optimisation' in the new builds of Windows 10. These features reduce the performance impact to noise level in most scenarios. In plain English this simply means the slowdown will now be hardly noticeable.
Retpoline was developed by Google and is able to block 'spectre based attacks' with hardly any impact on performance according to Google. If you really want all the technical details about Retpoline you can find it on Google's websiteherebut I bet you don't read all the way to the end.
If you are still running Windows 7 and are keen to get a low priced upgrade to Windows 10 then Churchdown Computers can help with this. For more details or a quote please call Mark on 07557 483438, e-mail mark@churchdowncomputers.co.uk or fill out the form at the bottom of theContact page.
