[tex-live] TeXLive 2005 is slower than TeXLive2003

[Karl Berry]

    > Does it just because using pdfeTeXk instead of e-TeXk?

I don't see an etex-based latex in the win32 binaries, but you could try
the same test with a plain document, e.g., 
  tex story \\bye
  etex story \\bye
  pdftex story \\bye

The multitude of extra system calls seem suspicious, as David said.
Offhand, I'd guess that it is searching a big directory on the physical
disk in one case and not the other, which is a function of the
configuration files and not the binaries.

    Is the TL2005 version generating DVI or PDF output by default? 

DVI.  The programs "latex", "tex", "etex", etc., have always generated
dvi by default, and always will (as far as I can imagine).  

    FWIW, my Dell machine

Indeed.  Also FWIW, on my various machines of various speeds, I have
seen no significant difference in runtime over the years.  It runs a lot
faster than I can edit, that's all I know :).

karl