XP Service Pack Slows Programs

AEton writes "Vnunet and others are reporting that Windows XP's Service Pack 1 has introduced a flaw into the operating system. Changes to memory handling code result in programs which often allocate memory (which is many of them) can take up to ten times longer than normal to start. Microsoft has acknowledged the problem in Q815411, and while a patch is available by request from Microsoft Product Services, it will not be widely released until Service Pack 2."

Comments

w2k is effected as well

[Billly Gates]

Both Openoffice and Mozilla have slowed down quite alot with the latest security updates from Microsoft.

When I open openoffice is just sits there doing nothing for like 20 seconds and then launched. No excess cpu overhead or anything. It just stalls and then runs. Its just annoying and I wonder if its a conspiracy theory.

Has anyone else noticed this?

Re:The fix will cost you

[mentin]

It is Oracle which uses the "Captive Audience" pricing plan - their user do have sign for service agreement (and pay for it) to download service packs and even security fixes.

Microsoft at least releases the fixes free.

Has anyone actually witness this slow down?

[antdude]

I haven't on my machines and test machines at home and office with various softwares. Are there any known programs or games that does show this?

Release candidates

[Tomster]

It is plain that Microsoft's internal testing is insufficient. I don't really fault them for this -- it's simply impossible to have enough configurations, testcases, and procedures to cover more than a small percentage of the actual ways the product is used.

IMO, Microsoft would benefit by issuing public release candidates for new OS versions and patches. It would greatly reduce the impact of problems with patches and new releases.

-Thomas

Jeez, learn to read

[fm6]

It's a cute joke, but...

This problem may occur if the programs you run frequently allocate and deallocate large blocks of memory. Changes in Windows XP SP1 in the memory management system have caused this operation to take significantly longer than with pre-SP1 Windows XP.

It's "frequently allocate and deallocate large blocks of" not just "allocate". This is not a small nit to pick, especially for Linux people. For years, GNU libc had a memory leak bug that was triggered by frequent allococation and deallocation of small blocks of memory. It only became an issue back in 2000, when Borland ported their component libraries to Linux.

Re:As a programmer

[NeuroManson]

It may be (a) Microsoft application specific, or (b) independant application specific, IMO. There are often hundreds of applications, be they shareware, freeware, or third party, that cause this issue, but lacking an exact basis for comparison between systems running each and every one of them, I doubt there is an easy answer, let alone a way to conveniently reproduce the bug.

Until more detail is offered as to the applications involved, there is no way to reproduce the bug, unless one develops psychic abilities, and can read the minds of every person using XP.