[speedplane]

I used to work on a cross-platform project, and spent several weeks trying to figure out why our application ran significantly faster on linux than windows. One major culprit was process creation (another was file creation). I never really uncovered the true reason, but I suspect it had to do with the large number of DLLs that Windows would automatically link if you weren't very careful. Linux, of course, can also load shared code objects, but in my experience, they are smaller and lighter weight.

[fanf2]

Anti-virus software makes process and file operations a lot slower.

[kevin_b_er]

This should not be ignored. Windows machines are a favorite for having lots of heavy anti-virus running on them. They can destroy I/O performance. Windows 10 has a "real time scanner" running by default, but many corporate-IT security teams will add more and more. This alone can seriously slow down windows vs linux.

[speedplane]

> Anti-virus software makes process and file operations a lot slower.

It was a long time ago (~2006), and I honestly can't remember, but I feel like turning off anti-virus (and also backups, software updaters, and any other resident software) would have been one of the first things I would have checked. There was definitely something more fundamental going on.