PCMag takes a look at the Vista SP1 beta, and concludes: “The actual first beta of SP1 may not deserve a fanfare, simply because – like all first betas – it has its own set of issues to resolve. But by the time you can get SP1 on the Microsoft Update site or as part of a new Vista installation DVD, you’ll want your PC to have it. Nothing dramatic here, but SP1 is a solid, useful upgrade that makes the operating system a little safer and a little faster.”
They have not mentioned the “snail-speed” giga-bit NIC performance. Damn it.
That could be the result of the “new and improved” network stack in vista. At the last TS2 seminar they claimed better network performance between vista to vista /server 2008 than any windows version yet.
It’s due to the multimedia scheduler (MMCSS). Almost certainly fixed for SP1. Maybe not in the beta, though.
no, Vista still gives preference to the users media files.
***SIGH***
well you shouldn’t complain too much since those same *improvements* are coming to XP as well and quite possibly to server 2k3. One thing I know is that SP3 ( while still in beta ) causes huge problems with the wireless connections on my XP machine. Wired generally does not have connection problems but they do occur sometimes and overall networking in SP2 works better than with SP3 beta installed. So if SP1 for vista is anything like this shame on them for claiming that it’s in a beta stage. Beta software is supposed to be generally stable while it still might have some bugs as sufficient testing has not been done yet. Only MS seems to change the meanings of alpha and beta every time their marketing team deems it profitable …
Slightly faster is not fast enough. It should be *fast*, not slow like it still is after applying SP1. Improvement is good, but in this case, many people expect more.
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Why would they do that? It would not be in keeping with Windows’ history. New versions of Windows are always slow on the hardware which is common in at the time the OS is first released. Microsoft then waits for hardware to get faster. It was true with Windows 3.1, and it is still true today.
Edited 2007-10-08 21:40
“Why would they do that? It would not be in keeping with Windows’ history. New versions of Windows are always slow on the hardware which is common in at the time the OS is first released. Microsoft then waits for hardware to get faster. It was true with Windows 3.1, and it is still true today. “
Of course it is true, because it drives the market. Newer software – better hardware – new features – new software – … continue ad libitum. This is “straight forward” software – designed to run on future hardware. And users essentially need it. 🙂
I’m finding quite a few people nowadays are starting to question this race for newer everything. Obviously, there’s no actual need for more speed and more RAM if you don’t play [the latest] games or do other resource intensive stuff. And most people don’t, they’d be just as happy with 5 year old hardware. Sure, when it breaks they’ll buy whatever they can get, but I won’t be too sure they’ll go get 2 GB of RAM just because Microsoft says so.
And please don’t tell me “RAM is cheap” because some people need to watch how they spend every penny, and if it’s not RAM it’s something else (video card, processor) and it still adds up.
Frankly, I find Vista “requiring” you to spend on components and upgrade quite rude. For what? Just to run the OS and the desktop interface? That’s crazy. The OS should be as lightweight as possible.
“I’m finding quite a few people nowadays are starting to question this race for newer everything. Obviously, there’s no actual need for more speed and more RAM if you don’t play [the latest] games or do other resource intensive stuff. And most people don’t, they’d be just as happy with 5 year old hardware.”
You see home users doing the same things with their PCs as they did 5 or 10 years ago – treating the PC as a worse typewriter, a music jukebox and a video player. The same functions can be achieved with older hardware, of course, but not in combination with “new” MICROS~1 OSes. Because PCs have been developed into “one tool for all tasks together devices” – in Germany we call this “eierlegende Wollmilchsau” (egg-laying wool milk sow) – users insist on doing everything that’s imaginable, finally they paid for it (or got pirated copies of their favourite OS and applications). Finally, just because it’s possible to do something using the PC, it will be done in fact. This requires always the newest software (in the mind of the user, of course), and there’s only “Windows” existing, so there is no way to get around it.
“Sure, when it breaks they’ll buy whatever they can get, but I won’t be too sure they’ll go get 2 GB of RAM just because Microsoft says so.”
They will, sooner or later. I assume, in the near future more and more installations in business and administration will run “Vista”, and home users want the same “pictures” as they know them from their place of work. And if this forces them to buy a new PC (upgrading older components does not pay in most cases), they will be happy to get a “free” copy of “Vista” with a brand new PC.
“And please don’t tell me “RAM is cheap” because some people need to watch how they spend every penny, and if it’s not RAM it’s something else (video card, processor) and it still adds up.”
I won’t tell you so, because I’m low on money myself. I try to recycle and use everything that is avaiable and still usable (such as a 300 MHz system – still useful for some tasks). To tell you the truth: It has been nearly completely possible yesterday to do everything that’s done today, it’s just about how smart you are. 🙂
“Frankly, I find Vista “requiring” you to spend on components and upgrade quite rude. For what? Just to run the OS and the desktop interface? That’s crazy. The OS should be as lightweight as possible.”
I tend to agree here. But finally, “modern” OSes include very much software in order to support newest hardware. Furthermore, users want to benefit from this hardware. As an example: If you buy a 3D graphics card, you want to see 3D effects all day long. So this needs to be part of the OS. The “one tool per task” philosophy is usually not present in MICROS~1’s OSes and applications, so they grow bigger and more ressource hungry.
No one is forcing you to upgrade; once Microsoft has stopped supporting Windows XP – then investigate an alternative operating system.
Yes, the hardware requirements of Windows Vista is pathetic over the top – 2gigs just for an operating system to run acceptably. An operating system which should merely be an interface to allow one to run applications (the sole purpose of a computer) rather than spending vast sums of resources simply sustanting itself.
With that being said, Bill Gates and/or Steve Balmer aren’t swinging into your room like a swatt team then place a gun against your head – and force you to purchase and install Windows Vista. You have the power in your hands; if enough people stop claiming to be a victim and use the power of the wallet, they could possibly change things.
Edited 2007-10-10 13:21
The author talks about getting Vista out of hibernation quicker. I’ve never been able to get it to go into hibernation for more much more than 60 seconds. It virtually always wakes itself up after about a minute. The hibernation feature in Vista is useless.
Are you hibernating it or putting it to sleep?
Hibernation actually shuts the PC off.
Vista SP1 may not fix your hibernation problem at all, because there may be nothing wrong with the OS itself, and the problem may instead be due to one or more applications or drivers you have running that refuse to shut down properly when asked.
When you attempt to put your system into hibernation, the OS asks/informs the various drivers “User wants to go into hibernation” and then the OS gets some sort of return value – or it doesn’t, depending on how the application/drivers were written. Also, it is entirely possible (depending on the hardware you’re running) that this is a BIOS issue where the BIOS itself is buggy, and your computer has a bug at that level, or even just a BIOS configuration issue. Hibernation is something that (IIRC) requires some support at the BIOS level to fully implement, and not all BIOS’s are created equal.
So, Vista SP1 *might* fix your hibernation problem, but if it is a BIOS issue, perhaps not, and if it’s one or more of your drivers or applications Microsoft didn’t ship with Vista.
It’s also likely that the NIC is waking the machine to refresh its network state.
powercfg -lastwake at a command prompt after the machine is awakened will tell you what device was responsible.
Most likely, it’s the NIC though, so:
Open Device Manager.
Right-Click the NIC(s) and click Properties.
Go to the Power Management tab.
If checked, uncheck “Allow this device to wake the computer”.
Edited 2007-10-09 05:34
A but OT but: anyone knows how to DISABLE hibernation support in Vista?
In Xp I think there was an option to do that in the Power Options, but I can’t seem to find it in Vista – it just eats up 4GB of my hdd space (the hiberfil.sys file) and I never use it anyway…
A but OT but: anyone knows how to DISABLE hibernation support in Vista?
In Xp I think there was an option to do that in the Power Options, but I can’t seem to find it in Vista – it just eats up 4GB of my hdd space (the hiberfil.sys file) and I never use it anyway…
It has to be done from the commandline, MS removed the option from the GUI Dialog.
1. Press the WINDOWS key and type cmd into the Start Search box but *don’t* press ENTER
2. Right-click on cmd in the Programs list and select Run As Administrator
3. Click Continue when the UAC prompt appears
4. Type powercfg -h off and press ENTER
That worked
Thanks!
“The speed of other day-to-day tasks has improved as well. Copying files and extracting them from compressed folders takes less time, and opening Windows Explorer for the first time in a session (which on my desktop could take as long as a full minute) now takes an acceptable 10 to 15 seconds—and much less with no other programs loaded.”
It’s scary when 15 seconds is an acceptable time for a file manager to open. Of course, it is an improvement from the minute the author claims that it is used to take, but I have a feeling that there is no amount of fixing that can mend something as structurally deficient as this version of Windows is.
Ya, Explorer is really slow, especially in Vista. Finder is much faster and more responsive. Browsing through the programs menu is practically worthless in Vista as Explorer tries to display the correct icons. This is on a P4 1.8 Ghz with 512 MB of RAM. This kind of performance is unacceptable. Incompetence is the only valid excuse.
Incompetence is the only valid excuse.
*cough*
Ya, Explorer is really slow, especially in Vista. Finder is much faster and more responsive. Browsing through the programs menu is practically worthless in Vista as Explorer tries to display the correct icons. This is on a P4 1.8 Ghz with 512 MB of RAM. This kind of performance is unacceptable. Incompetence is the only valid excuse.
why bother running it on that hardware? XP is going to be a lot more snappy with those specs.
The point that I saw good vista performance was when I put it on a dual core 2Ghz. machine with 2 gigs of RAM and a Radeon X1400 with 128 megs of ram. It flies on this machine but other machines with lesser specs have exhibited some sluggish behavior with Vista in my experience and I’ve since moved them back to XP.
I’d say if you moving into the realm of new hardware, have a couple gigs of RAM and a decent video card (for this day and age) then check vista out.
on yesterdays hardware I’d just stick with xp.
The problem is not your CPU or your RAM… it’s the hard drive.
I agree with your assessment that the start menu is too slow when displaying programs in folders as you expand them. The Windows Shell team should add a icon cache or some other rapid-access database of items in the menu so that opening folders does not stall too long on the disk.
I’ll bet that would be even faster if they stored the icons in RAM. Anybody with lots want to weigh in on this?
I had the same problem with GNOME under low memory conditions. It would take a second or two to load the icons in a system menu, and they would get paged out as soon as the menu closed.
Yeah, but I’d rather use the RAM for programs and data. What I’m advocating is going to disk, but making that trip as low cost as possible (a single seek and read rather than several small file reads).
Perhaps the start menu people figured that most people would type to search rather than navigating the menus.
Agreed….
Heck, on Linux (and probably the BSDs as well) there is
PCmanFM – that is really fast (“fast” meaning that it takes about 1 second to open).
“dear microsoft,
we apreciate that you are trying to fix up vista, honestly we do. But next time, if it isn’t to much trouble, do you think you could just release in good working condition initialy? thank would be just great.”
🙂
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That would probably not be practical. There comes a point in every experiment at which you just need more guinea pigs.
but I tried your sp1 on 4 separate machines, 1 self build and 3 from different manufactures and each one performed worse afterwards.
is there some debug code left in there perchance ?
I have only tried it on 1 machine and it runs much better. This with using CS3, games, general responsiveness of the OS is much better.
I hope that things will get better for the final SP1 release but so far so good.
Is the desktop part of explorer? If they’re talking about running it on startup and it has to wait for the desktop to load first, that could be reasonable. I know nautilus can take that long to open a window on older hardware when it doesn’t have a desktop running yet.
But I don’t think that’s what they mean. Man, and people whine about how long it takes gnome-terminal to start.
mbot: You might try upgrading your RAM. The way I hear it, 1 gig or less is bound to cause excessive pain.
DDR prices are higher than DDR2, so I’m not sure if I want to invest in a computer that I might not use much longer. My desktop is old and slow enough that adding $60 worth of memory is probably not worth it. I’ll stick with XP for the time being.
That said, Vista uses about 300-350 MB without Superfetch/cache, so I still expected it to be responsive. OS X seems fine with 512 MB of RAM.
Having ran MacOS X on a PowerPC with 512MB, I can assure you, it was painful with 10.2/10.3 and 10.4 – you need atleast 1gig to make it barable. Please, this is the same junk that was spouted several years ago about the fictional ‘G3 233Mhz with 128MB and runs MacOS X wonderfully’.
Windows Vista has its issue, but there is no ‘perfect operating system’ which can address all end users requests. With that being said, I think this whole ‘Vista bashing’ is nothing more than a side-effect of ‘its what all the cool kids are doing, so I better do it too – so I don’t feel left out’.
I moved back from OpenSolaris for the same reason I moved back from Linux (of various distributions), the lack of focus on integrating the components together, the lack of hardware support for my devices. I’m not saying that Windows doesn’t have flaws, what I am saying is that compared to the alternatives out there, given my circumstances, its not all that bad.
Lets remember folks the same drama when Windows XP was released; the backlash against it with vendors ‘demanding’ Windows 2000 Professional to still be available – people deduced that ‘Windows Vista’ is not wanted by OEM vendors, incorrect, what the OEM vendors want is more time to transition given the radical changes which Windows Vista bought forward.
I’m typing this on a Powerbook G4, 1.67 GHz, 512 MB of RAM on Tiger and it feels snappy to me. What’s so unbearable about running 10.4 on 512 MB of RAM? Care to share what was slow?
Regarding Vista bashing, I’ve used Windows since 3.0, each version has been better for me. I have a history of liking Windows releases, but Vista is different. It’s hard to find a feature or a list of features worth $200. Not only that, it’s the first time I can write a list of cons for a Windows release. Vista criticism might be popular, but it’s well-deserved.
I agree with each release Mac OSX has gotten fsster. Whilst waiting for my memory to arrive for my macbook last year, i used it for a week on 512MB and it worked fine. Office etc.. running fine.
However back on topic, i think the major things that need to be fixed are the simple file operations. I cannot believe they released vista in that state, when vista would choke on copying files both locally and on the network.
I would like some better memory optimisations aswell, although i know they are not gonna happen. When running Vista on a 3GHZ HP with 1GB RAM the HDD thrashes when using office. Standard startup is using about 700MB RAM.
I know memory is cheap at the moment, but i don’t want my OS using it all when i need it for the apps i run on top of it.
I was running a eMac G4 w/ 512MB, it was after long periods of usage things would slow down; same situation with the old 20inch G5 – I *NEVER* said that needing to have 1gig is a bad thing.
What I get pissed off is the hyperbole of taking something to an extreme; its like the legendary one of, “I run Linux on a 486 w/ 8MB with a fully blow GUI!”.
As a ‘retail package’ it is a rip off, but as being bundled with a system, it is pretty good; for me, I’ve got an HP laptop, loaded with Windows Vista w/ 2gigs of memory; it runs like a champ. If I had my old Toshiba, would I upgrade to Windows Vista? nope, I’d probably wait till I upgrade the hardware.
As for the original article ‘reviewing’ a service pack is stupid; its like reviewing a beta version of an operating system and claiming that to be the ‘benchmark’ the compare to. Sure, talk about the changes, talk about what has been added, but for goodness sake, don’t review something that is still being developed.
What I get pissed off is the hyperbole of taking something to an extreme; its like the legendary one of, “I run Linux on a 486 w/ 8MB with a fully blow GUI!”.
I could understand that. 10.4 would very slowly with 256 MB. I expected a little more from Vista since it uses less than the required amount of RAM, unlike past Windows releases.
As a ‘retail package’ it is a rip off, but as being bundled with a system, it is pretty good; for me, I’ve got an HP laptop, loaded with Windows Vista w/ 2gigs of memory; it runs like a champ. If I had my old Toshiba, would I upgrade to Windows Vista? nope, I’d probably wait till I upgrade the hardware.
I agree. I don’t think Windows Vista is so bad that you need to put XP on a machine with Vista bundled.
For me, after giving Windows Vista with the latest updates; for me, I think given what it provides vs. what it uses is out of wack. It requires 2gigs to run acceptably but with that being said, the need to have 2gigs just to make it run acceptably is excessive. Given that to hit the same ‘sweet spot’ with MacOS X, 1gig is needed – it seems that to get the same level of experience you need twice the memory.
Which brings to wonder what the whole screaming and whining by Dell and the likes was about; big companies have licences bought directly off Microsoft, they’re going to replace the pre-installed Windows with their own licenced Windows XP, so I can’t work out what the point of it was.
Microsoft I think realises that most people are going to move to Windows Vista, not through choice but through hardware upgrades; I’d probably say that Leopard will yield greater adoption through hardware upgrades rather than through retail packages. I know serveral mates who have waited out for Leopard and get it bundled with the machine rather than buy now, upgrade later.
I tried a pre-release of SP1, back when it was supposedly “leaked”, and I have to say even that early in the game, SP1 is a big improvement to Vista, at least the 32-bit version.
On my own computer a full, proper shutdown took a 1:40 from the time I hit shutdown to the time the machine actually powered off. With the leaked SP1, that has dropped to about 5 seconds. Boot up time has similarly improved, booting within a comparable timeframe as XP (again, on my machine – YMMV) I noticed a stability imrovement, nothing objective, but my system has not frozen once since the patch, and backward compatibility seems to have been improved. Also, Superfetch seems to be smarter – my fixed disk has far fewer spells of grinding than it does on a fresh install.
The early patch I’m using doesn’t show any obvious improvement in the network stack, but I can’t say that it won’t show up in the final SP1. The move to the Server2008 kernel is a nice bonus too, as it comes with PowerShell.
Overall, from my own experience, SP1 is going to make Vista acceptable and even almost enjoyable to use, as the new features and eye candy will no longer be overshadowed by terrible performance and stability. As it is now, Vista is the version of Windows I boot into when I need to do something (game) that I can’t do in Linux.
FWIW, I have yet to see any of these issues on a RTM 64-bit Vista installation, so I’m curious to see how Vista64 is improved.
I do however wish they’d figure out how to better implement UAC – it’s a very good idea, and it’s been around forever in *nix, yet MS somehow managed to make it a nuisance that many power users will simply turn off.
Anyone have experience with the mentioned change in GPMC is not work with local computer policy?
I work primarily with small businesses, this is could be big deal.
I’m not that excited about performance: my company built me a pretty hefty system for Vista testing, and I can’t stand to use it for much more than that.
What I’d like to see fixed are the little things that scream “Pre-alpha” in Vista:
– having to close and reopen windows to see file changes (Refresh doesn’t do anything I can see);
– three separate dialogs to copy one .exe file from my build machine so I can test it;
– the horrifically broken “search” function that can’t find “regedit” until I type the entire thing (Spotlight on Mac usually needs 1 or 2 letters for programs I use _all_the_freakin’_time_);
– Hibernation speed is fine by me, except that I have to keep a PS/2 keyboard attached so I can restart gently when my USB peripherals don’t wake up. (Admittedly, that’s a problem with OS X too, and Macs are even worse off when USB chokes.)
I consider 2K the high water mark for MS; XP has its good points and I’ve gotten pretty used to it, though it’s not good enough for MS to (apparently) stop trying completely once they released it. Vista just isn’t usable, it’s not even fun to test on, and I don’t see this SP changing that.
opening Windows Explorer for the first time in a session (which on my desktop could take as long as a full minute) now takes an acceptable 10 to 15 seconds—
You got to be kidding me. I woudn’t wait 10-15 seconds for any file browser to open up. If so i would grab the latest kernel and change the DE inmediedly on my linux box.
He has to be kidding right, loading Windows Explorer doesn’t take longer than 3-4 seconds (the FIRST time after boot, mind you), then it’s like under a second. On my old Centrino 1,7GHz 1 GB RAM laptop.
I’ve often defended MS on here but to be honest I just find Vista ghastly.
Why it needs such a top end spec for the most basic of tasks is beyond me when I have KDE + compiz and a host of daemons running smoothly on a system half Vista’s minimum spec.
But as I’ve said before, maybe just maybe I’ll warm to Vista in a few years time
I agree with a previous poster, for me Windows 2000 was the high point of the MS OS line; It doesn’t get in my way and just lets me get on with my work. If it was a little prettier I would see no compelling reason to use XP or Vista at all.
I have Vista on my PC and honestly I don’t love it. It’s slow to load (especially slow to get on my wireless network) and I have to hit the same 6 popup bubbles every morning. Yes I know you’re online, yes I know UAC is turned off, yes I know there are security problems, etc etc etc. It drives me spare! Is there a way to turn bubbles off in Vista?
I’m not setting out to bash MS here, but Vista is just not a fun OS to use.
Start services.msc and select SecurityCenter change to disabled (in some languages its inactivated) and then reboot, voilla! no more popups.