Microsoft has released a preview release candidate for Windows Vista SP1 to a large group of beta testers. The RC preview beta [ed. note: release candidate preview beta?], which was released late Nov. 14 and includes changes to the setup and installation experience made as a result of tester feedback, was made available to 15000 pre-selected beta testers, just 3000 more than the first beta. Additionally, Microsoft has released a new build of Windows Server 2008.
Sounds like Capcom had some input in the name of this release. Anyone up for some Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix?
I wonder if they fixed the file compression bug where it takes 1 hour to “unzip” a 10 MB file? I’ve downloaded 7-zip to use in the meantime, but thought that bug was really strange.
That bug’s probably a timing bug — part of an annoying series of bugs where Windows gets a task done in a resonable amount of time but throughout the process tells you it’ll be done in 2 years or some silly thing.
No, it really does take that long to uncompress a 10 MB file. It’s not just where it’s telling the end user the wrong amount of time before it completes. I’m pretty sure it has something to do with the indexing, but make no mistake – Vista has set a record for being incredibly slow when it comes to just uncompressing a file.
I saw that during the Vista beta, fortunately no longer. It would go at 100bytes per second for some reason.
I just use 7-zip anyway, it’s far superior.
7-zip actually makes far smaller archives too. I don’t know if Vista has improved on this, but often I get 20-30% more compression in 7-zip, especially when archiving large amounts of data.
Edited 2007-11-16 11:53
funny, when I use tar and gzip, it never takes that lon… oh, wait. nevermind.
It’s not just ZIP – all IO activities done from the shell (copying, moving, deleting, opening network shares, etc.) have the same issue.
It’s *supposed* to be fixed, but I hear it’s still there, just a little bit harder to spot.
I just zipped about 25 MB in about 5-6 seconds on Vista (right click on folder -> Send to -> Compressed (zipped) Folder. (AMD X2 2.2 GHz, 2GB RAM, 250GB SATA HDD).
Problems with copying, etc. files/folders have been fixed, as far as I can tell. Keep your system up-to-date with Windows or Microsoft Update.
Edited 2007-11-15 22:47
What about decompression?
Restart your PC first to clear the cache… Mod it down all you like, but I’ve seen first hand that Vista deals with files created in the same session far faster than those in previous sessions.
Man.. I didn’t mod you down, why should I. I know well that Vista did have those problems. But as I said, as of a few months ago, I can’t say that I still encounter them.
Restart your PC first to clear the cache…
Restart my PC? Why would I want to do that? I mean, it’s not like I am doing that normally.
I will though, just to see what happens and I’ll post the result here.
OK, here it is after the restart (even though, this is the stupidest idea ever, no offense).
Vista unzipped the file in about 20 seconds (7-zip did it in about 4-5 seconds).
Yeah, I know Vista is not champion when it comes to either compressing or uncompressing, but it is nowhere near what you said.
Why is it so hard to believe that Microsoft does indeed fix problems through Windows Update?
I can’t say that they fixed all those problems, I just don’t see them any more.
Edited 2007-11-15 23:07
Why is it so hard to believe that Vista is a downgrade, a huge backwards step that people just don’t want?
Windows Update is a backdoor just waiting to be exploited.
Why is it so hard to believe that Vista is a downgrade, a huge backwards step that people just don’t want?
Well, the guy said that Vista still has problems with copying/moving/deleting files, etc, so I see where you’re coming from: just like him, I guess you don’t use Vista daily.
What is your opinion based on? On somebody else’s? And that somebody is just like you – somebody that doesn’t use Vista. Somebody that thinks that nothing can get fixed and that copying files is still problematic on Vista. Well, think what you want.. I use Vista and I don’t see that it is a huge backwards step. And that issue has been fixed, but sure you guys know better since you don’t use Vista (otherwise you’d know that it’s fixed?)
Windows Update is a backdoor just waiting to be exploited.
Just like any other operating system that can be updated in a similar way I guess.
Edited 2007-11-16 03:29
I guess he is referring to is the automatic update of Windows Update components without the users permission; it was reported on Zdnet and a number of other outlets for a couple of weeks – with Microsoft’s story changing like the wind.
The issue that was raised is this; if Microsoft has a ‘back door’ into your computer to update their software, whose to say that some inventive cracker, with some know how, can’t reverse engineer Windows Update and find how this ‘back door’ operates. If people can crack activation and create key generators, I’m sure reverse engineering Windows Update ‘back door’ should be a walk in the park.
Sigh, ones again. The “Backdoor” was system where Windows Update calls to update server, “Hi, I would like to have new updates”. Since server also checks that caller has the new version it responses, “I’m afraid sonny you need new jacket before that”. “Oh how nice mister, please give new jacket”. And we are done, Windows Update gets updated and can start updating system. So hacking this kind a system would need to first hack the Update Servers, right easy task and definetly huge problem.
If it helps, I just tried zipping (send to… compressed folder) a 232meg movie, while I had firefox open and media player 11 playing an ep of house. took me 41 seconds. (HP Pavilion dv9000)
I love how people are so determined to believe the worst about vista. Maybe I should start trolling Mac forums and talk about how OSX fries firewire ports, or start trolling linux forums about how KDE isnt opensource.
“If it helps, I just tried zipping (send to… compressed folder) a 232meg movie, while I had firefox open and media player 11 playing an ep of house. took me 41 seconds. (HP Pavilion dv9000)
I love how people are so determined to believe the worst about vista. Maybe I should start trolling Mac forums and talk about how OSX fries firewire ports, or start trolling linux forums about how KDE isnt opensource.”
Ignoring the irony of this statement. As one who *heavily* denied problems in Vista that were eventually fixed in Vista. I would have to take any comment with a pinch of salt from you.
Ignoring the built in spyware; WGA(sic) sorry the new one; DRM(sic) etc etc. Vista has *lots* of regressions, Vista has not been well received in General. It has been touted on here by *many* that SP1 will fix many of these regressions if they have not been fixed already as part of an update. Vista even to those most in denial has a troubled start with incompatibilities with hardware and software, as well as having a little hardware supported. I don’t even have to mention the whole Vista Capable fiasco. In reality very few machines support Vista’s hardware requirements today, but we slowly this is changing, simply because the hardware is getting cheaper for these new technologies.
I don’t think it does any good to deny problems in Vista esp considering a SP1 gives Microsoft another bite at the cherry to get it right and relaunch a lackluster platform is even healthy or any platform. IMO I think the simple fact that you can’t replace compressed folder functionality with 3rd party software trivially is the real problem, and its not limited to zip is the real problem, and I suspect we all know why that is.
Personally I hope they fix the many regressions in Vista so its a least a contender again. I’m getting a little tired that this site has become more about patents and licensing since Vista got relegated to a second-class OS.
I am downright shocked cyclops. I wasn’t really going to reply to this since we have really beaten this issue to death together, but this surprised me. I would have bet that you would be more like the other people in this thread, clinging to problems which are no longer problems.
I *never* said that there were no problems. Every statement I made on these forums was qualified by a YMMV type remark. What I did say is that for whatever reason, I didn’t experience those problems. Since launch, I have experienced a slightly faster boot, slightly better overall performance, and faster network file copying. After a few of the performance and stability patches, others have had more of a night and day experience with Vista. Don’t ask me why, I have no idea. My guess is that HP did a damn good job choosing hardware and drivers that worked well with Vista while not much else did. My experience on linux is similarly pleasent, I can run compiz with none of the problems others experience, and standby/resume works flawlessly.
I’m not quite sure what you mean by this. I replace compressed folder functionality with WinRAR as soon as I have the OS installed, and have for as long as I can remember.
The problem is that even if they make it run as well as it runs for me for everyone, it still costs 300$ for the home version. That is plain insane, and if you want all the features, 600$ is even worse. 600$ will buy you a very nice PC nowadays. Vista brings windows out of the stone age, but Leopard really is a better OS for the vast majority of people out there, and it costs 150$. Linux still has quite a few rough edges, but if you look at the zero cost, you are getting a hell of alot more bang for your buck, even if your time is worth something. MS needs to wake up and do some serious price reductions to make Vista viable for more people, because as it stands, you have to either be rich or insane to pay the kind of money they are asking.
“The problem is that even if they make it run as well as it runs for me for everyone, it still costs 300$ for the home version. That is plain insane, and if you want all the features, 600$ is even worse. 600$ will buy you a very nice PC nowadays. Vista brings windows out of the stone age, but Leopard really is a better OS for the vast majority of people out there, and it costs 150$.”
I take issue with this comparison.
You’re comparing the price of a retail copy of OS X with the “full” price of Vista rather than the “Upgrade” price. This is wrong. Since every Mac comes with a version of OS X, all retail boxes of OSX are in effect “upgrade” versions sold at “upgrade” prices. To make a fair comparison, you should compare OSX prices with “upgrade” prices for Windows. The retail price for “Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium UPGRADE [DVD]” is $160, and for OS X Leopard it’s $130 (using US dollars) (both are available cheaper in stores and online). It’s still more expensive, but comparable.
Vista Ultimate is too expensive though, even for the upgrade version.
Second, OSX upgrades are released every 12-18 months. I suspect that the price over a few years of OSX upgrades is greater than the accumulated price of windows *upgrade* retail boxes over the same period of time.
OSX does have the advantage of the “family pack” that allows one to *legally* upgrade to up to 5 Macs in the same household for like $190. Microsoft very much needs a better family plan (they have a 3-PC plan, but it’s not nearly the discount that OSX’s family plan is).
Edited 2007-11-16 18:56
The problem is that OSX has no restrictions, Vista upgrade does. AFAIK, you have to have a previous version of windows already installed for it to even install, not to mention restrictions on what version you are upgrading from. If you want no restrictions, you are going for the 300$ package.
Not only that, but as Steve Jobs says, “Everyone gets the ultimate version”. Vista Ultimate and Leopard come very close in feature parity. If you are comparing to Home Premium, Leopard comes out on top. This makes no sense to me. Fine, keep the limit on IIS and the authentication restrictions and whatnot, but why would you not include Shadow Copy in the home version? It really is a killer feature, even for home users. Why strip down the backup center?
In reality, 130$ for Leopard gives you what 600$ for Vista Ultimate gives you. Sure, every mac is an upgrade, but so is virtually every pc. Apple doesnt feel the need to place additional restrictions on its installer, why should MS? If you bring down the feature set, and deal with install restrictions you can get it for significantly less, OEM home premium coming out to 110$, which is very reasonable.
“””
“””
It’s all about the natural life-cycle of a monopoly which is not a natural monopoly. Like any publicly traded corp, their investors expect them to expand their revenues. Since their customer base is already… well… pretty much everyone that has any money at all to spend, they have to try to squeeze more money out of their existing customer base. It’s not really a matter of choice. It’s a matter of stark business reality. And it gets worse, not better, with time.
This makes for customers that want to get loose, and leaves the company more vulnerable to competitors who only have to be”good enough at a better price” to get those customers to jump ship. And since the monopoly is not a natural one, the barriers they can put up using their monopoly powers are not absolute; Customers and competitors *can* scale them.
Unfortunately, this can take a very, very long time. And in the mean time, everyone other than the monopoly gets to suffer.
That’s why I’m in favor of government intervention. But that is, admittedly, a double-edged sword, and thus controversial.
Edited 2007-11-17 01:09
“IMO I think the simple fact that you can’t replace compressed folder functionality with 3rd party software trivially is the real problem, and its not limited to zip is the real problem, and I suspect we all know why that is.”
You may “know why that is” but I don’t, so why don’t you enlighen us? But before doing so, know that one has been able to replace Windows’ compressed folder functionality with 3rd party software for years (WinZip, WinRar, PowerArchiver, etc). But, please, go ahead and enlighten us as to why one can’t do that.
Edited 2007-11-16 19:08
No. Other update systems still require a local user to authorise updates. If the local user rejects the update, they don’t get installed.
Windows Update just goes right ahead and installs stuff without even asking. This mechanism is supposed to be for updates to Windows Update, but already once Microsoft have made a mistake and applied that don’t-bother-to-ask-permission-to-install mechanism to a desktop search program. So there is nothing in the Windows client machines which checks “is this an update to Windows Update before I go ahead and install it without asking?”.
In other words, the asking of permission is STILL a function of the install software and not a built-in security function of the OS itself.
Hence, Windows Update is a backdoor.
Do you really imagine that any blackhats seeking to compromise your system would arrange for their rootkit software to politely ask permission first?
Edited 2007-11-16 09:35
Windows Update just goes right ahead and installs stuff without even asking. This mechanism is supposed to be for updates to Windows Update, but already once Microsoft have made a mistake and applied that don’t-bother-to-ask-permission-to-install mechanism to a desktop search program. So there is nothing in the Windows client machines which checks “is this an update to Windows Update before I go ahead and install it without asking?”.
I think you’re just full of crap. Did it happen? Yes. But to say that it is completely useless or dangerous, it is just out of touch with reality.
Ad hominem ataccks? A fairly good sign of a losing argument from the poster of the attacks. Tch tch.
http://www.osnews.com/rules.php
Did it happen that something was installed on Windows Systems which was (a) not an update to Windows Update, (b) not something that was already on most systems, and (c) not a security issue?
Yes, it did.
Did it get automatically installed by an external party without any approval or even involvement of the owners of the machines?
Yes, it did.
Does that mean that the core OS Windows itself does not require permissions from a local authorised user before Windows Update can install something at the system level on machines?
Yes, it does.
Do the machines in quiestion belong to the party installing said unwanted software?
No, they don’t.
Does that mean that Windows Update is a backdoor?
Why yes, it does.
To imagine otherwise is just out of touch with reality.
Edited 2007-11-19 03:29
Are you referring to me? I use Vista daily. And I get automatic updates. I still have the problem with files taking a ridiculous amount of time to unzip.
I’m running Vista Home Basic on a Dell Inspiron 1501. If you weren’t referring to me, then ignore this post. However, if you were, then you’ll just have to trust me when I say that my Vista machine, with all of the available upgrades, still has the problem with uncompressing files.
I’m running Vista Home Basic on a Dell Inspiron 1501. If you weren’t referring to me, then ignore this post. However, if you were, then you’ll just have to trust me when I say that my Vista machine, with all of the available upgrades, still has the problem with uncompressing files.
Are you sure that this is not a problem with antivirus software?
I know well that Vista’s file uncompressing behaves exactly as you described when, for example, AVG 7.5 is installed. It is VERY slow. Once AVG is disabled (Resident Shield) it worked fine (still slower than 7-zip, but nothing that slow).
Just to add, at work we had (last year) similar problem with McAfee on XP, until they (McAfee) released update.
Edited 2007-11-16 15:14
I am running AVG (v 7.5.503). Thanks for the info. I’ll try disabling it and see how that goes.
disabling aero and and enabling each explorer window to run in separate process helped me to solve whole bunch of such problems
http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2007/08/07/1715181…
Here is the reason, on Microsoft’s own site.
Great link. Thanks for the info.
Still reeks of incompetence. Why not continue using the same algorithm as XP? Anyway, the blog indicates that it’ll be fixed in SP1. We’ll see…
Edit:
Not that XP is great at creating zips. I’ve found that on my XP machine, if I select say, 100 jpegs and do a SendTo-CompressedFolder command, the first 50 or so files are processed nearly instantaneously, but after that it gets slower and slower and slower until the last few files take like 10 seconds each. I’m guessing that for each jpeg, the zipfile is opened and closed, so each operation would get slower as more files were added and the zip file gets bigger (though even that wouldn’t explain the massive slowdown, I don’t think).
BUT if I instead select a *folder* that contains those same 100 jpegs, and do SendTo-Compressedfolder on that folder, then the entire process completes in like 3 seconds (of course the created zip file is different, since the jpegs are within a “directory” within the zip file). In that case, I’m guessing that the operation keeps the zip file open while adding each file to it. Why they don’t use the same algorithm for the first case, I don’t have a clue. More incompetence, I guess.
In both cases, opening the zipfile is nearly instantaneous on XP, unlike Vista (so I read and am told).
Edited 2007-11-16 19:22
hehe
Reading the comment’s to Mark Russinovich’s blog, someone speculated that the reason that XP’s built-in compression is so inefficient was to not put the likes of WinZip, WinRAR, PowerArchiver, etc out of business. And maybe Microsoft went overboard in doing that for Vista. :p It actually sounds reasonable. Though I would suspect that it’s maybe only implicit; meaning that they didn’t intentionally make Window’s compression suck, but certainly didn’t bother to make it fast (or even reasonable, in Vista’s case) either, for the sake of those 3rd-party guys.
Edited 2007-11-16 20:19
That happens so MS can claim the ‘zip’ standard is broken and introduce their new one.
“That happens so MS can claim the ‘zip’ standard is broken and introduce their new one.”
…which will require Windows Vista, and on top of that, a very recent machine to run.
did that article contain any information as to what the SP fixes? I couldn’t find anything other than the fact that they have some sorta beta release. I tried to click through some of the links, but they were equally unhelpful. It seems that the web page is more interested in getting ad revenue than it is giving useful information.
(edits for spelling)
Edited 2007-11-15 22:15
It’s eWeek, what did you expect? When their fluff magazine wasn’t doing too great, they had to improvise and use interstitial ads and other junk.
They probably can’t afford to pay their journalists to do proper research either.
If you are up to date with windows update, you have the majority of it already. But if you want more of an overview
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_sp1.asp
Whats the update on Windows XP SP3?
Last I heard there were rumors but nothing concrete. This is the release i’m waiting for. Long as the lifeline isn’t a year or something I’m going to buy it. Vista scares me still.
“Whats the update on Windows XP SP3?
Last I heard there were rumors but nothing concrete. This is the release i’m waiting for. Long as the lifeline isn’t a year or something I’m going to buy it. Vista scares me still.”
Here’s an October 2007 article on the beta of XP SP3.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2200761,00.asp
Last build number I’ve had my mits on is 3205, which I believe was the official Windows XP SP3 “beta 1”.
Edited 2007-11-16 00:58
This is the latest I’ve seen:
http://neosmart.net/blog/2007/windows-xp-sp3-beta-build-3205-releas…
I would like a disk image with the SP included (edit/ when it gets released). Can i assume that is never going to happen unless i slipstream it myself?
Edited 2007-11-16 00:40
Does anyone know when Service Pack 2 for Windows 7 will be released?
This makes me sad, slipstream is not possible.
I don’t want to apply SP1 after installing Vista. That’s a waste of time.
I guess I’ll *cough* download *cough* the official slipstreamed image.
Why can’t they just release this image for free? We already use product activation. If bandwidth is a problem, why not torrent it?
funny how they call everything an “experience” now. of course everything’s an experience, that’s just the most vague thing they could ever say.
Today’s Vista Experience
http://www.groklaw.net/comment.php?mode=display&sid=200711152128487…
Cook the dinner while U wait.
I guess you do need Vista to experience something like that.
funny, vista boots in ~50 seconds on my 6 month old laptop. Either the writer makes perogies at the speed of sound, or his laptop wasnt up to the requirements.
I have used Vista on an AMD 3200 with 1 Gig RAM and Nvidia 5200, also the same machine with a 7600 GPU. I have also used it on more modern machines.
Copying a lot of files was initially much too slow but after installing the performance and comptability fixes from Microsoft – they came out 2 to 3 months after Vista was released those problems disappeared.
Vista is easily better the XP. I hate using XP now that I have used Vista. Its a definite improvement in every way. Microsoft ended up doing a fantastic job with Vista.
I really don’t see how you are defending Vista’s compression times.
Athlon XP 3000+, SATA drives, Linux Kernel 2.6.22:
25megs of random data:
k@gunhead ~ $ time zip -r test test
adding: test (deflated 0%)
real 0m1.977s
25megs of ‘0’ data:
k@gunhead ~ $ time zip -r test2 test2
adding: test2 (deflated 100%)
real 0m0.387s
ok, compressing a movie is pretty silly, you aren’t going to get much compression out of it, but we’ll play the game. 232 megs of random data:
k@gunhead ~ $ time zip -r test3 test3
adding: test3 (deflated 0%)
real 0m34.451s
I’d also like to note I was compiling something in the background. So, can we admit something is seriously wrong now?
From what I’ve read, the zip functionality in Vista’s explorer is slow, and unacceptibly so, even today (but still faster than it was months ago). But is your test a fair one? On Linux, you’re calling zip from a command line and measuring the speed of that. My understanding is that calling a zip utility from the command line in Vista is fast too.
Edited 2007-11-16 16:00
Once again, I was *compiling* something while I ran the test. Everybody seems to have posted results from their dual core systems at a fairly relaxed state (firefox, maybe a movie playing?), I was compiling code and compressing even faster. Maybe all the extra windows stuff is worth it, just not for me.
Using winrar to zip the very same file took me 26 seconds. Noone is trying to prove that the windows builtin zip utility is any good, just trying to stop the FUD that the problems that were fixed half a year ago still exist.
Alright, compile finished….
last test again (232 megs of random data):
k@gunhead ~ $ time zip -r test3 test3
adding: test3 (deflated 0%)
real 0m18.208s
I’d actually like to get ahold of SP1 and give it a try, and see how it goes. It’s it possible to d’load it?
“Since every Mac comes with a version of OS X, all retail boxes of OSX are in effect “upgrade” versions sold at “upgrade” prices. ”
Totally wrong. Every copy of OSX is a FULL version, not an upgrade.
Any OSX you purchase can be used on a clean drive and do a full install, so the comparison is fair. These are not upgrades, though OSX will indeed upgrade a previous version detected.
Heck, you can even performa full install of OSX on a non-Apple x86 piece of hardware if you are willing to go through and perform the hack.
“Totally wrong. Every copy of OSX is a FULL version, not an upgrade.”
Ugg…
I’m saying, *in practice*, the OSX retail boxes are upgrades. Good grief.
“Any OSX you purchase can be used on a clean drive and do a full install, so the comparison is fair.”
But the Mac had a Mac OS on it at some point, right? Meaning that Apple already received payment for an OS on that particular computer (even if the price of the OS was included with the original purchase of the Mac).
(Just in case your suggesting that the upgrade versions of Vista don’t allow clean installs, the Vista upgrade versions have the same bits as the full versions and can be used to perform clean installs. But idiotically/greedily, Microsoft makes you have to keep the old OS DVD around so that if you need to reinstall Vista upgrade, you need to install the old OS, then do a clean Vista install over that (it’s still clean since it wipes the old OS before installing the Vista upgrade, but it’s stupid that you have to keep the old OS dvd around and perform two-step reinstallation process (there is (or at least, was) a work-around to this nonsense))
“Heck, you can even performa full install of OSX on a non-Apple x86 piece of hardware if you are willing to go through and perform the hack.”
That’s not the case in practice nor is it how Apple wants you to use it. Part of the reason for the low price is that Apple already got money for the hardware, which isn’t the case in your scenario. I think your scneario is also against Apple’s EULA. In which case I can come back at you with “if you are willing to go through and perform the hack you can pirate Vista and install it for free on as many computers as you want.”
Edited 2007-11-16 19:50