Re: Why does Word:mac take so long to start up as compared to Wind
- From: "John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]" <john@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 22:59:44 +1000
Hi Marc:
A Pentium-M in a Dell runs at up to twice the speed of the Core Duo on the
current MacIntels -- and on the MacIntel, you are first waiting for the
Rosetta emulator to load and create an environment before it can begin to
load Word.
You should also be aware that Word takes a LOT longer than it "appears" to
load on a PC. However, Office 97 and later on the PC includes a "pre-load"
mechanism that brings most of Office up when Windows boots. When you
"start" Word on the PC, effectively all you are doing is making an instance
of it "visible" :-)
We're in very early days with the MacIntel (well, you are, I can't afford
one ...) You need to understand that nearly ALL of the software out there
for the Mac is currently designed to run on the old processor. The fact
that the MacIntel performs as well as it does with old software is nothing
short of amazing: every single instruction is "back to front" to it, and has
to be flipped for use on the Intel processor.
The next generation of software, the "Universal Binaries" will be at least
four times faster on your hardware. The next version of Office will be a
Universal Binary.
Cheers
On 20/4/06 3:56 AM, in article
93770D0F-4904-4509-AB28-25B07025451B@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Marc"
<Marc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Thanks for the information. I appreciate it.
I'm not sure if your PC system has a lot of background processes running or
a slower processor, but on my two-year-old crappy Dell Pentium M, Word takes
about one second to load, from the time I double-click, to the time I see a
blank document with a blinking cursor ready for typing. And no, I'm not
talking about maximizing it from the system tray, I'm talking about starting
the program fresh.
I'm just dismayed that it takes so long on the Mac. It's really annoying me
to wait while programs load, and I'm not sure if I should have switched.
On the other hand, they tend to crash less frequently, so I guess I save
time overall.
"CyberTaz" wrote:
One reason: Mac Office doesn't run natively on Intel Macs - it runs through
the Rosetta emulator, so startup will be slower than you may prefer, but all
reports I've seen indicate that the programs run well once launched. Once a
universal binary version of Office is released I'm certain you will see a
dramatic increase.
Other considerations are that the if the systems you're looking at are
in-store displays they may have only stock RAM, might not be very well
maintained, and are subject to other factors that may inhibit performance.
Also, as a PC-user-too, I have to challenge your "less than one second" to
launch Word on a Windows machine... Restore it from the Task Bar, perhaps,
if it has already been launched, but not a 'cold' start :)
Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac
On 4/18/06 4:47 PM, in article
6DAB1733-6F35-4211-81FA-2F590692D118@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Marc"
<Marc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I'm considering switching from PC to Mac, and I've noticed extremely long
startup times for Microsoft Office products, such as Word and Excel, on Mac
computers, including the new MacBook Pro.
Word takes less than one second to startup on my PC (two years old, running
a 1.2 GhZ Pemtium M). It should take a lot less time on a new mac running a
2 GhZ Intel Core Duo. Why doesn't it? Is there anything I can do to speed
it
up?
--
Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.
John McGhie <john@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410
.
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