Is a .NET 4.0 website loading faster for any reason?

Question

I have been using DotNetBlogEngine for many years, and today my host (JodoHost.com) has officially enabled .NET 4.0 support. I made them change my site from application 2.0 to application 4.0 and planned to recompile the site if I had to. What I noticed right away is that the website loads much faster the first time it loads, the subsequent loads are only slightly faster.

The web site was compiled as a .NET 2.0 web application; no recompilation of the site is required.

Is the reason for the increase in performance known? Have there been changes to the .NET 4.0 platform that have improved the initial loading times of websites into the application pool?

This is hosted on the 2003 server.

Here is the link for the site: http://www.ocdprogrammer.com

Answer 1

Probably doesn't explain the huge acceleration, but please see: .NET 4 Web Application Launch Time :

... there is a switch in C: \ Windows \ Microsoft.NET \ Framework \ v4.0.xxxx \ Aspnet.config called shadowCopyVerifyByTimestampwhat ASP.NET uses to run the CLR. The CLR is optimized in .NET 4 as shadow copy assemblies are loaded removing the unnecessary copy of the file if nothing has changed. Consequently, part of the improvement is the launch of a cold web application.