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Microsoft One Step From World's Greenest Company
An anonymous reader writes "According to this article, Microsoft is only a few lines of code away from becoming the greenest company on Earth."
From the article:
"Redmond should issue a software upgrade to every computer running Microsoft Windows worldwide to adjust each machine's energy-saving settings for maximum efficiency."
The author figures that the upgrade would affect 100 million computers and that the power cost savings could hit $7 billion per year. CO2 emissions would be cut by 45 million tons. But what about the impact on computing?
Install Linux! Pollute the Earth!!!!!1111
1. Piss off every performance-oriented computer user on Earth 2. ??? 3. Profit!
this atones not for monopolism
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
Yes because this won't piss of loads of people worldwide at alll....sigh
So, reading the article it seems that this patch is merely turning the power savings mode on by default. How many people will just turn it back off straight away?
There is no word on whether this is going to be marked as a critical update, or whether machines that are not running WGA will be able to update.
What a phenomenally stupid idea. I have personally used a half-dozen machines where enabling "power-saving" is a recipe for operational disaster. Machines that power off completely. Machines that lock up. Machines that do something and never come back.
I think the lack of foresight on TFA's part with this inane suggestion reflects pretty accurately on how seriously we should take the article as a whole.
People who need better performance would change the settings. The vast majority of people don't need better performance. The vast majority would be okay (performance-wise) running a slightly souped-up C128 with GEOS and the Wave.
What about all the companies that enforce power management settings across their network that remove standby mode etc? And that's just one large example of all of the little situations which would partially negate this ignorantly large savings estimation.
Not saying it wouldn't help, but you don't force something like this down on a 5 year old OS. Now if they included some sort of detection system in Vista that adjusted accordingly, then that would be helpful for the next gen.
Somehow I think U.S. Sustainable Energy Corp (http:www.ussec.us) would be the worlds greenest company if what they state they can do is true.
I've set our network up to do rather a lot overnight; the "healing process" as I like to call it. Each workstation is completely backed up to a storage server, SourceSafe to the tap-drive(40Gb database), SQL Servers run the maintenance plans (backups to tape, index consolidations, etc), automatic updates are installed and applied (if there are any), and each machine runs a full virus scan. It takes most of the night, and is quite essential for smooth running.
Basically, by the time people arrive in the morning; everyone's data is safe, machines secure, and operation virus-free.
In other words, there's no way I'd recommend shutting the network down overnight.
throw new NoSignatureException();
If the installed base of PCs was comprised of many different OSes each of comparable market penetration, this would require almost every OS vendor to make these changes -- assuming of course they all had something akin to the Windows Power control applet in the first place. In fact, this *could* be one of those times when having a monopoly desktop OS is a *good* thing.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
Please disable "screen saver" feature altogether. DPMS sleep modes work much, much better for "screen saving" (and screen saver of course do not save energy at all). Flying shits and "nice" landscapes may be kinda fun for a first time but that time ended about 20 years ago. Oh, same applies to all unices and macs of course. I have colleagues who have screensavers running on there PCs/laptops for _days_ (as on weekends) and monitors never go to sleep. Sigh.
I for one welcome our new Green M$ Overlords.
.. that let Microsoft globally turn off those flashy LEDs and stupid crap that people use to customize their PC cases with. Clearing stores of the USB attached crap they sell at Christmas would help too - my local store is selling USB powered plastic fake-fish fish tanks, cup warmers and much more.
I've seen server rooms that run off DC and have substantial power savings.
Google suggested a new standard for ATX power supplies that is supposed to have again, substantial power savings.
There are solutions out there without a doubt. Big businesses would save money on their bills.
So why is no one interested in saving money?
Bueller? Bueller?
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
If Microsoft didn't exist at all, the IT industry would be far more energy efficient. Think of the stupidity of integrating the GUI into the Kernel for an OS that runs servers. Windows is bloated and it isn't getting any better. A look at the system requirements of Vista further proves just how inefficient Windows is. Think of all the CPU cycles, RAM, Disk Space, and other resources waisted on anti-malware, malware itself, license authentication, DRM decoding, and etc other bothers caused by the crap that this illegal monopoly has forced on us.
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
Save the chairs!
Task Mangler
Number of non-mobile computers out there that support CPU frequency and clock scaling - Very few.
AMD has only had that on the market for desktop CPUs for 3-4 years (or less), and Intel has only had it on the market for 3-4 months (since the Core 2 Duo launch for the desktop). No previous Intel desktop CPU supported any power management of significance.
This is one of those aspects of hardware that can't be changed in software. If the hardware doesn't support it (and for a few more years, most machines won't, people overestimate how often the "average Joe" replaces his hardware, same for corporate users), no software update will do a thing.
If he's talking about suspend and hibernate - That stuff is disabled by default because it rarely ever works properly. Of all the machines I own, only one (My newest machine) can wake up from hibernation with 100% reliability. If Microsoft tried to force hibernation to be enabled on all users, they would have a massive lawsuit on their hands due to all the machines that can't handle it.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I don't grasp how this is "anti-Microsoft." That's a wee bit hyperdefensive to accuse the OP of. All the blog says is that if more people put their computer in standby or sleep mode at the end of the workday, the world would save a lot of money and electricity. That's not anti- anything except senseless waste. It's true however you want to defend it. I've never worked in a corporation that shut the computers off at the end of the day, despite the fact that it'd probably save them tens of thousands on electricity and having to buy new hardware periodically. As for how complex it is, considering there's already an option in every Windows system to put the computer in Standby after X Minutes, I doubt it would be very hard to change the setting in the Registry or wherever it's stored (I don't do Windows programming, but I use it enough to know the dialog box for Sleep Mode is there). That seems impractical and risky to me. It'd be better for MS just to start some sort of "corporate conservation" campaign telling them to shut the workstations down in the evening and flashing a bunch of slick graphs with captions like "Profit Losses Due to Idle Computers" on them till the executives' eyes glaze over and they submit.
brandelf: invalid ELF type 'KEEBLER'
Car companies could drastically reduce emissions is they would would just limit all internal combustion engines at 3000rpm. Think of what this would do for emission levels.
Or that the engine would shut itself down if you let it run stationary for 30 seconds.
I think I just solved the entire global warming issue!
Onwards to the meaning of life!
The parent is on topic. I actually chuckled a bit.
Religion and politics, without the flame. godgab.org
They have a lot of green, consequently...
What they should do is allow machine power settings to be controllable from an Active Directory policy object. Network admins would then have fine control of the power usage of their desktops.
Microsoft could also use their online updating powers to make windows secure, thus reducing the power consumption caused by viruses, spyware, virus scanners etc.that use 90% the resources on the average windows box.
This blogger should lead by example and turn his machine off.
Permanently.
If the processor(s) weren't so busy running such piggy code, perhaps they could automagically throttle down without any coaxing from Redmond and without affecting those of us who need to have their systems running full-bore 24/7.
How would this make Microsoft the greenest company? As far as I can tell, it wouldn't. It would make the companies that use MS products greener companies. It would have nothing to do with the net energy that Microsoft uses.
It's like sex, except I'm having it!
This article did directly address Microsoft concerning power consumption, and perhaps rightly so, I won't speculate. But the amazing thing here are, in fact, the numbers. If we actually just allowed our machines to enter sleep mode, we could have a significant environmental impact. A positive environment inpact, to be clearer. And if that isn't enough, for large businesses the cost savings should be relevent as well.
This isn't just about what Microsoft can and cannot do, this is about what we as users do. For those of us in the know, we should take this to heart and make an effort, if we aren't already, to reduce our power consumption. For everyone else, there needs to be education. Microsoft built in the feature, now we as techies need to let everyone know how to use that feature. Something like this helps everyone.
Just have a look at the paper's cover story and some of the essays... Who /.ed this???
Just sending a personal message to shelley about this. This does indeed solve a lot of problems I've having with my PC.. Even measure's like doing back to a native screen colour such black instead of white ..
http://shelleytherepublican.com/
The color must be color of money in this case
Aren't they contradicting themselves by releasing the most power-hungry OS ever?
Vista already seems to have a more power-saving profile by default, I was surprised when I couldn't VNC into it a few hours after leaving. Turned out (when I physically got there) it entered the suspend mode. Needless to say (but I'll say it anyway, hah!), the power settings are back at Always On.
and other amazing consequences ?
Read radical news here
Can you imagine the support nightmare Microsoft would unleash upon themselves if they did what the article suggests?
Articles like this underline a huge problem in the software industry. Too many people think that software is easy, and that all any problem needs is a few software tweaks. Too many people are willing to offer up solutions without thinking the issue all the way through.
It is attitudes like this that lead to failed billion-dollar IT projects, most of what is offered on the Daily WTF, and VB hacks promoting themselves as software engineers.
Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
Those computers are not theirs. So if I have a computer and I save energy, it is I who should step up, not the who told me to do it to save money and not the person I tell to implement it.
If it were that easy, I am also one step away from being the greenest person: Everbody, turn off all your computers. Do not drive your car and don't use any electricity.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
It's a pre-emptive strike.
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If you think people won't twist "Microsoft could help the environment" to "Microsoft should already be doing it", you haven't been here long enough.
And I thought he was talking about changing the "BLUE" screen of death to "GREEN" ala the X-box. That WOULD make them the greenest company. Or was he talking about all the "GREENBACKS" they have in the bank. They could make a big difference were they to provide green/clean power for Seattle and Redmond.
a) Install pskill
b) Kill -9 -1.
Job's done!
Jaj
someone please write a worm that sets power-setting to maximum. The world will be a better place in no time...:-)
Apparently unlike some I actually read TFA.
;-)
I don't see where Microsoft commented one way or the other. What we have is a blogger with an idea to inflict power saving modes on people. MS is *way* smarter than that.
It's one of the down sides to free speech on the internet - even people who have dumb things to say can be instantly (and globally) published.
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
1. Invest in energy companies.
2. Change software to burn more energy.
3. Profit!
I figured out that my PCs were consuming more electricity than my fridge, dish washer, and clothes washer. Combined.
I made a chart of actual electricity use of various PCs and Macs on my blog: PC and Mac power consumption.
In a nutshell, my annual power consumption went down by 30% (!) once I started to power down my home-built "home server PC" when not in use.
I also figured out that when buying a new PC that is going to see a lot of use, power consumption should be a factor. If you're saving $100 in purchase price, but spending $50/year for additional electricity because the cheap PC's power supply is grossly inefficient, well, have you really saved anything if you keep that machine for 3 years? The short answer. NO.
Powering down unused PC's would be an even better idea. My desktop at work is only on for the 9 hours I'm in the office, and my home machine is only on for the 6 hours in the evening after work and before I go to bed.
Wow, I've never heard of Microsoft using power responsibly before.
If you look a little back in time Microsoft was responsible for an insane waste of energy by not letting Windows 95 and 98 (and others) use the HLT-instruction to make processors save power. Back when I had my P2-300 it used 40 watts when idling under Linux 2.2 and 60 watts under Windows 98 (non-scientific measurement with a simple digital multimeter). Scale that difference up to all Windows 95 and 98 in the world and Microsoft doesn't seem so environment-friendly any longer. -- Regards Jes Vestervang
$28.25 billion dollars of cash on the balance sheets. That's a lot of green!
[Insert pithy quote here]
I don't believe any MS operating system has a built-in power on/off feature like Macs have that allows you to set the machine to turn on and off at specific times. At my workplace -- in fact, at every workplace and university I have ever attended -- computers were left on at full power 24/7. If MS pushed an update that set the default power settings to sleep or hibernate at 8 PM, that would probably help a lot. As far as making it Mac-like, turning back on at a given time, I suppose that would take BIOS support that most PC mainboards don't have. I don't think it would kill people to have to wait for startup in the morning, though: it would give me an opportunity to fix a pot of coffee and sort the junk mail, for example. I suppose you could combine short delays before hibernation with dedicated flash memory for saving the hibernation image for fast start/stop to make hibernation more practical for power saving, but that requires a hardware solution.
As far as being the "greenest" company -- no, this would help but IIRC lighting is a bigger consumer of energy. However, it would be much easier, cheaper and faster to change power settings than to change bulbs and install timers on lights worldwide!
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
I'm sorry, but I don't see a problem here. This seems no worse than turning on the Windows firewall by default. Those of us who spend a lot of time tweeking and modifying our machines would obviously configure our systems to behave the way we want them to. People who don't care won't care anyway.
I have no issues at all with my sister's computer going into a power-safe mode by default. My grandmother's computer could certainly scale back when she's not playing solitare... could probably scale back while she's playing solitare.
Please don't get your panties in a wad just because we're talking about Microsoft here.
I'll choose what settings to run, esp on machines I need to backup at random times during the night.
yes it would be nice to turn the things off/standby/hibernate but it wouldn't work here..
They already know about all of their windows flaws. So, they could just write their own virus to do the work for them. Either that or incorperate a "Critical Bug Fix". However, I think that they would find that they would make up for the $6 billion or so that they saved everyone in court fees to pay off everyone that was upset by this. It would never happen.
Err, I hate to mention this, but for the poor people stuck using Windows as a server platform, wouldn't this mean their entire server room would quietly go to sleep each night, and then require someone to be in to power up every system and ensure they come back from sleep okay? Which is not what I'd call a trivial task...
Increasing energy efficiency in general (not just in computing) is something that we can do relatively easily and that will help substantially to combat the rise in CO2 emissions. Unfortunately one gets the feeling that a lot of people, especially on the right wing of the political spectrum, are against increasing energy efficiency simply more because the environmentalists advocate it doing it rather than because it is a bad idea.
I will deceide my systems power settings, the default ones out of the box are often too much more me. I am all for saving energy, but most of my systems I need completely awake and alive all of the time.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
Why not just patch the machines to shut down ? This would save even more.
All of my PCs have unique power settings, due to their unique needs. If Microsoft changed these settings on me I'd just change them back.
Regards, Lex
What about the profit lost due to the company not being able to mass push updates at night without going to every computer?
Not to mention the companies that let people login remotely to their work PCs, or that have networked shares.
If I turn off my computer the electricity or energy gets diverted to the heating of my house instead.
And the heating is doing just that, heating. No computing as a bonus. I'd rather have my computer heating
my house.
Changing just two settings on the average office PC will cut it's useage by over 50% on a daily average, yet hardly any office ever mandates that they be enabled
- Screen saver totally disabled in favor of DPMS suspend after 10 minutes of inactivity and monitor shut off after 15 minutes
- Set hard drives to spin down after 20 minutes of inactivity.
See how easy that was? It didn't affect your backup plan or anything else. The hard drive setting ALONE can save you 15% or more, especially if your office runs lots of applications over the network.
Of course wasn't it Microsoft that implemented all of the power down features because it took so long to boot Windows in the first place that people didn't want to wait so long for the computer to power on? Wasn't it also the bloated Windows code and feature creep that made it necessary for ever faster cpu, ram, video and storage requirements, which all equate to more energy consumption? Isn't also true that Microsoft Vista is going to tax these resources even more? So, isn't it a bit hypocritical to talk about how "green" Microsoft would be by forcing computers to power down?
Maybe a better solution would be an OS designed to run on lower powered devices from the start instead of trying to make the high horse powered PC of today more efficient. As an analogy, although there have been improvements with technology, an eight cylinder automobile is not going to ever be as fuel efficient as a four cylinder one. Nor will a four cylinder be as efficient, say as a fuel-cell powered one. Likewise, as long as the system requirements to just run Windows (not even applications on Windows) keeps increasing, the PC will continue to consume greater and greater amounts of power.
We all know, even if we don't want to admit it, that personal productivity for the business masses, anyway, has ceased to improved, at least significantly, from the latest releases of Windows. Why? Because of those 600 million computers quoted in the article, most are used for things like word processing, simple spreadsheets and surfing the web and to do email. Stuff that computers capable of running Windows 2000 and Office 2000 (if not earlier versions) still do quite well. Sure new versions make it easier to get pictures of our cameras and to create music, etc. But the vast majority of people aren't seriously doing that work and those that are, use specialized tools, anyway.
Now, many will argue, and I would agree, that hardware is cheap, relatively, anyway. However, the point of the article was not about cheap hardware, but about saving energy. And the point of the matter is that as long as we keep adding fluff and flash to the OS, forcing bigger and faster computers, which translates into greater power consumption, they will never be "green." Even if they do power down when not in use, they will still use far more energy than is needed to actually perform the task while they are on.
If Microsoft wants to truly be known as a "green" company, then they should design the next version of Windows so that it runs on less hardware than what is currently required, so we don't have keep to filling up the landfills with technically good computers that become obsolete, just to stay compatible every time Microsoft releases the latest version of Windows.
If you are using AMD CoolnQuiet then turning the powersaving mode to anything but the minimal power saving profile in Windows results in running at full clock and voltage all the time. With my well ventilated Athlon 63 x2 4200+ this results in a CPU temperature jump from +10 over ambient to +20 over ambient when idle. It's true that AMD's need to select minimal power saving is completely backwards and unintuitive, but it's reality for anyone running a modern Athlon.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Why do they have to fall into the catagory of "Good" or "Evil"? Can't there be a shade of gray?
I know of a few folks who were able to retire early because of their investments in MS stock back in the late 80's and early 90's. As far as they're concerned, MS is in the "Good" catagory.
And if they can use their market power to make PCs use less energy, I am for them - as long as they inform their users that they're doing it.
Just a thought - and I have had only one cup of coffee - so bare that in mind. ;-)
The title of the article as "Microsoft One Step From World's Greatest Company"
Suffice to say i almost fell off my chair
I changed my laptop from "max power" mode to "mid power", which was supposed to decrease power consumption by slowing the cpu to complement cranking the fan. It shutdown suddenly after about 2 hours, damn thing overheated. I'm lucky I didn't kill it.
So did they just turn off hotmail.com .. Cause its down.. I understand now its all clear turn off hotmail.com put up a notice that its too busy and save millions of energy around the world.. Do es anyone else knotice hotmail.com is down!!!
PCs have this option "hibernation", which you can disable or enable in powersaving-options. This saves power because it shuts off most hardware and keeps the kernel in memory for popping up your desktop again where you left off instead of running a screensave and waste energy. Your computer isn't "off", but it will appear like so.
To go out of this mode, you press the key with the moon,sleep,"standby","any"-key to bring back up your desktop. On wireless sets you might have to hit the sync button on your receiver to bring the PC out of that state.
Like many MS update features, it could be controlled at the enterprise level and companies could opt-out via WSUS or not push it via their update delivery mechanism of choice. Or, they could build into WSUS a wake-from-LAN feature for update purposes.
"The upgrade would adjust the machine's energy-saving settings for maximum efficiency. Of course, this upgrade would have to allow critical systems to opt out. Nobody wants air traffic control computers to suddenly go into deep hibernation. But correcting for critical systems should be very simple for a company that churns out millions of lines of code every year."
Wow, this paragraph made me soil my jeans. What's scarier: a) critical systems running Windows, b) critical systems running Windows connected to the Internet, c) critical systems running Windows connected to the Internet accepting patches from Microsoft, or d) trusting Microsoft to let anyone opt out of anything.
"Correcting for critical systems should be very simple for a company that churns out millions of lines of code every year." HA! What are you smoking? Microsoft has no way to know which systems are critical. And Microsoft doesn't have a wonderful track record with patches.
It's very frightening to think that c) above could actually exist, but unfortunately it's probably true.
Sheepdot: Open Source good, Closed Source baaaaaaad!
Hardware is toxic and energy intensive to produce and to dispose of. MS pushes a short hardware upgrade cycle, aiming to get its customers to make new hardware purchases every two years or so. Remember not only do later versions require newer hardware, eventually out-growing old hardware, most of MS' income is from Windows sales and nearly all of that is from OEM sales. Thus, MS is economically dependent on a short life span of units with unreasonably large ecological footprints.
Say the ecological footprint of hardware is the same over time.
You get the idea. Or ...
A 3, 4 or 5 year hardware cycle is perfectly reasonable, unless the software/operating systems gets so slow and bloated that performance suffers. Or unless the vendor stops supporting the software or operating system and their is no way to get third party or home grown support. So, MS-enforced hardware upgrades are definitely not green.
Anyway, the blog (it's not a real article) is way off base about energy consumption. Shame on /. for pushing MS' hype.
MS' coding practices make the company un-ecological: As the blog points out, currently, most MS machines get left on 24/7 (or as close to that as possible) to allow crackers to get in -- I mean to allow the system administrators to push out patches on "patch tuesday" or whatever it's called now.
Turning the machines off would also make them invulnerable to exploits, at least for the duration of the inactive period. Wake-on-LAN is an underutilized feature and could allow that. But it has nothing to do with any specific operating system.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Gotta keep them lawyers busy.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Microsoft became a "monopoly" because it sold products that people wanted.
That's complete BS ; you were probably the one on breast feeding at the time. MS ended where they are 'riding the bear' in own MS lingo, that is to say they were lifted from a successful 8 bit BASIC provider to king of OS solely by IBM. IBM could have and actually tried to get a better OS at the time, but G. Kildall (CP/M father and IDR CEO) refused flat out to give IBM copyrights on CP/M, and in IBM culture, it was unthinkable to not be the owner of the OS. Bill Gates was not that shy, essentially because he didn't have a true OS to sell in the first place, so he happily handed IBM half of his rights on - at that moment - nothing. And when the deal was cut, finally he ripped a blatant copy of CP/M named Dirty OS and slapped a MS-DOS tag on it (do as I say, not as I do). What makes me marvel everytime is how poorly IBM dealt the whole PC thing. They failed to assert their intellectual property on BIOS, leading to massive cloning ; they failed to prevent OEM sales from MS directly to cloners (because they thought there would be no clones !). They failed in keeping the lead in PC developpement from Compaq. In the meantime, MS raised from garage to near monopoly without selling a single copy directly to consumers, so to speak. So your classical liberal 'market explains it all' storyline doesn't hold water.
MS has never been the choice of the consumer market, they were successulf as Of The Shelf software producers, because they helped computers makers keep their cost low instead of licensing better but costlier systems. Every time MS has tried to enter a market on their own, they took a beating or lost enough money to fund a third world country debt ; MSX, tablet PCs (twice, in 1993 and 2003), Xbox, name them all. Can't wait to see them plunge on Zune.
Fine. Then I've had a lot of defective products over the last few years. TBH, could probably have sat down and tried to figure out why my PCs didn't wake from sleep, but as someone who shuts down their PCs when not using them, didn't really seem like an issue...
Its a trap !
Read radical news here
1: invest in energy companies.
2: wait
3: profit
Doesn't everyone know that one? The other is.
1: Invest in banks
2: wait
3: profit
Deleted
In a lot of places, electricity comes from (mostly) non-polluting sources: water (hydro-electricity), air (wind turbines), sun (solar panels/concentrators). For a lot of people, burning coal or fuel to produce electricity just doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
To assume that shifting computers to "power-saving mode" will reduce CO2 emissions for all of them is quite narrow-minded.
Microsoft is just one line away from becoming the greenest company on earth:
RGB(0,256,0)
It's like green, but it's "one more" than green. It's the greenest.
I haven't seen an app this green since I switched from AS/400.
Did anyone else notice the stats between the PS, PS2, and PS3 power consumption? I figured that technology was going in that direction, but I had no idea how bad.
Raise the price of energy. Raise it enough for people to notice when they leave their computer at home on all night. Raise it enough that companies look for greener ways of doing things just to save money.
Jesus told him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. - John 14:6 NLT
Harnessing the kinetic energy in all those chairs Balmer keeps throwing?
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
So .. is the world better off using my PC's power to run weather sims to help predict future weather patterns .. or is it better for the environment if I shut them down ???
Here's why:/ 28/54719.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2003/08
I find the copious bitching about how problematic power-saving is to be irresponsible. Most laptops can pull it off flawlessly. I run primarily off of my MacBook Pro because it is quiet compared to most desktops, energy-efficient, and comfortable. My experience with Macs is that the hibernate feature works well. My PC desktop hibernates without a problem, though it is newer hardware. But that's just it - there's a lot of hardware out there, or drivers for it, that is poorly designed from this respect. That doesn't mean you dismiss the problem, that means it's worth tackling.
Power your system down when you don't need it. Consider hibernating if sleeping doesn't work well. Don't underestimate a notebook or a Mac Mini or similar PCs like the shuttle. Consider LCD over CRT. Don't just turn off, turn off the power strips for your computer and other things too - a lot of electronics go onto a standby mode that consumes a large fraction of the power they would if left on. When you build or buy energy efficient, you tend to get lower profile and noise and heat as well. Enjoy it!
Microsoft could push the industry for fixing or working around the issues with current hardware, and get fixes and updates and wizards out there. I agree with the article's premise, without any pretense that it's a simple fix.
Brilliant business strategy...for Apple and Linux, that is.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Think global and act local.
Get up!
It gets expensive replacing hard drives after a couple years of start/stop cycles.. one of the reasons you'll notice the hard drive setting is set to off by default after Windows 98.
My Company has a policy that you must leave your computer on all the time.
For years I always shut down, precisely for the reason mentioned in this article.
I convinced the rest of my team to do so.
Car manufacturers should upgrade every car with software to automatically shut the engine off when not in motion. Of course, critical vehicles would be allowed to opt out. No one wants their Congressman's Suburban to suddenly go into deep hibernation.
It's conservative to estimate that hundreds of millions of cars are currently running inefficiently, being used in non-critical applications, and ready to accept an upgrade.
We have an intiative here where I work, (1000s of seats). Turn computers off at night. This over the last couple months has saved a significant amount of power, much more that I thought it would. This has reduced our power bill (and not everyone is doing it).
The biggest thing MS could do, is to use the screen saver to black the screen (put monitor into standby aka orange mode). This would at least reduce screen power comsumption. Its amazing when roaming around the city, the number of default windows screen savers/login screens you see running all night.
They call it stop/start. Cheaper than a hybrid. They beef up the battery and starter motor to cope with the stop/start. It increases the mpg by about 20%. It doesn't wait 30 seconds though it switches off when you put it in neutral while stopped.
http://www.gizmag.co.uk/go/3709/
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Please note that while sarcastic, I am happy that the mass market blindly following the trend help fund the R&D effort to produce the better computer I need to run my computer-vision programs...
[Linux zealotery] You can surf the web, play divx, mp3, program and write emails using Linux on an "old" (maybe 3 years) configuration. They are less powerful but generaly use less power. Needing a PIV 3 GHz Dual Core with 2 Go RAM and a graphic card with more memory than I have in my file server for reading emails and DVDs is the real waste, Microsoft is only somehow compensating for this.[/Linux zealotery]
[mod me insightful] Linux is not produce by a company but by individuals on their free time, we can't give its "green rank". But if we want to compare this network of people to a company like Microsoft you have to consier some things :
People in large companies tend to use more resources than people on their free time, be it paper, power, AC, better computers, etc...
The "Linux network" only has programmers. No marketing department, no administration, no financial department, etc... each one of these producing their own wastes
Linux is often used to "recycle" old PCs into education tools or simple media boxes. Do do that with, say, Win 95, you would have (in theory) to 1) find a licence 2) forget about internet connectivity because of all the nasty stuff Win 95 is vulnerable about 3) forget about recent software, even those which are lightweight.[/mod me insightful]
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Bill Gates & Co. have raped this planet and it's peoples.
We should be masters in paradise, instead we're slaves in hell.
And how many of those products actually get properly tested in those scenarios? Granted, in the past 2 or 3 years it has gotten MUCH better, but how many windows users have computers less than 3 years old? A whole lot less than you might think (Still a very large number, but percentage wise it would be lower than you'd think.) And many systems claim to support S3(or whatever) but have such piss poor code for it, that using it is about the same as unplugging your power from the wall without warning, but less environmentally friendly(Since it enters the power save state ok, it just never leaves it.) So what do you do: Trust the ACPI bios that claims to support even more efficient power states, and risk alienating the user by crashing their computer, or only use the less-efficient power states(Which is still slightly risky), despite the fact that the system MIGHT support better power savings just fine?
And if 'cool and quiet' was enabled on my PC, it WOULD crash. Why? Because my system is overclocked, with the voltage boosted, so if AMD's default voltage drop kicked in, my comp would most likely promptly blue screen. I have read about a third-party utility you can install that makes power management calls to do custom voltage and clock speed ramping, similar to cool-n-quiet, but allowing you to test the voltages and make sure they never go too low for your overclocked chip.
Instead of dealing with that, I installed BOINC and I run leiden classical and climatesimulation.net, I figure if I'm going to 'waste' the power, I might as well put it to good use.
So Microsoft is no longer the rookie company? Haven't shot a rifle? What?
Just because you can, does not mean you should.
i read that as "Microsoft One Step From World's Greatest Company" shudder
We shut down each day, and the updates are pushed to us when we start it in the morning. What's the problem?
The blogger is advocating Microsoft forcing users to accept drastic changes to the way their PCs function. Because if "opting out" were easy, we'd all do it and there would be no savings.
However, it is quite simple to use group policy and scripting to make use of energy saving features and shut down PCs when they are not being used. I know, the school district I work for uses them.
We have over 1,200 computers in the district, and every one of them will power down its monitor after 15 minutes idle. We've had to disable hibernation because it doesn't work properly on older systems, but we are powering down hard drives after 30 minutes. At the end of the day, the only workstations not powered down are administration and IT--less than 50 total.
Something not mentioned in that article: MS hasn't been able to make hibernation and suspend 100% reliable, and they've had years to work on it. Now this guy wants them to force us all to use it. No, thanks. Maybe when he gets a CS degree and can fix MS's code so that all the energy saving features work right on every PC they encounter I'll consider it, but until then this guy needs to shut his trap about things he doesn't understand.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
Join climateprediction.net. Americans obviously need not apply.
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This might burn some karma and upset some M$ fanbois, but ....
I think it would be more appropriate to say M$ is one step away from being the worlds most evil company.
Well maybe not even one step.
Cheers
* Carthago Delenda Est *
Turning off or powering down desktop computers at night would wreak havoc on most enterprises larger than 25 desktops. We use after hours to push updates, install new software, and perform other maintenance. Your costs for new hardware would also likely increase significantly as the most likely time for hardware to fail is on power up. If hardware is running it typically stays running and only fails on a change in power status. If you changed to this "Green Policy" you would need to update your enterprise during work hours which would reduce the productivity of your labor force (also expensive). I think this is a case os someone who doesn't know what their talking about trying to make interesting dinner conversation. It is annoying at best for those of us who actually work in IT for a living.
I swear I didn't know it was loaded...
I have no idea where my brain was but I read the title as "Microsoft One Step From World's Greatest Company". I need to drink more coffee.
one word: vista.
... & of course running on windows xp is just fine. but, all these people would have to upgrade sooner than thier normal upgrade cycle because of windows vista and its huge appetite for hardware with some meat on it. these PCs will consume much more power (despite all those power saving innovations), and also add to the burden & the cost of producing new hardware (environmental pollution, water consumption et al!
* there's a whole lot of people who will upgrade or be pushed into windows vista.
* there's a whole lot of businesses who will be pushed to vista, sooner than later
windows xp with whatever software supposedly in TFA that helps save power is just fine. that doesn't convince me one bit. Windows vista is about to trigger a massive rollout of new computers that will edge out computers/machines that are just fine with windows Xp. anything labeled "vista ready" will be the one to buy, after all most normal people (average joes and janes) buy the marketing tripe than sensible purchase decisions. the gamers and enthusiasts (me included) would obviously want the latest and the greatest anyways (so count them out).
for most people running a browser, with a notepad & word + excel, a winamp or throw in the odd application - a normal athlon or a sempron or a beefed up celeron
all in all i dont see any significant contribution by MS towards proclaiming itself green anytime soon. lets instead compare the cost to the environment by the marauding windows VISTA.
Partition size cannot be reduced below 37 G.
Vista requires significant HW upgrades to be functional and more hi-tech junk will end in land fills.
Any environmental credits for putting more "Advantage" programs on peoples computer are forever in the negative for this company.
Another one: creating unnecessary junk, just to be in the market: Zine, X-Box and what else have you?
Actually this article touches a good subject. Imagine how much energy we could safe if computers worked a bit less. People running computation stuff as screensavers *might* be cool but it sure costs the planet a lot! We "geeky" types have never really thought much about this... our computers stay on a lot uplaoding, downloading, rendering, screensaving or just doing nothing but they waste shitloads of energy. Nobody would actually leave his telly on while off to work.. but somehow we think that it is ok to leave uour PC on while we are gone "because it is doing stuff". The question is... does it *really* need to do stuff?
Also, DPMS has lost a lot of virtue with the advent of desktop lcds. It's still worthwile but you aren't going to be seeing any 50% reductions in power utilization anymore.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Mostly the problems with power saving are attributable to the horridness and lack of proper implementation of APM and ACPI, no? Which OS are your half-dozen computers running? if they're 2k or earlier, they don't fully support ACPI, and presumably (I know this is a stretch with MS) they will integrate ACPI support into the patch.
/.er? This is meant for the little old ladies playing solitaire on a 3Ghz P4EE with a GPU fully capable of running everything they need anyway. And people who won't notice the difference. Not specifically you. Not specifically me.
And generally, if you need your computer to run faster, then you probably know well enough not to install the patch. Are you not, my friend, a
It's a great idea. Sometime I don't agree with people bashing MS-bashers, but come on. This is one of those evil patches that is going to make your life better, and the lives of your children better. And think of the penguins.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
In the words of Elwood P. Dowd, "My mother always told me that in this world you must be oh-so-clever or oh-so-good. I've tried clever -- I settled on good."
Looks like Microsoft is taking Mother Dowd's advice.
These stories are free but worth money.
Microsoft should focus on basic email platform. Today, I tried to login to my hotmail account and guess what? Server is busy. http://lc1.bay0.hotmail.passport.com/toobusy.html? s=BAY0-LC2-000
They use Windblows in air traffic control?! (gulp)
Thanks. If it was a smaller company where the impact on global pollution were negligible the decision would have been fine. Instead the OSes ended up on hundred of millions of computers which MS probably had expected. Some sort of workaround cannot have been that difficult to implement compared to the consequences. At least they could have made it easy for the consumers to turn on the HLT-instruction :-/
AFIK, when Linux started halting the CPU in the idle cycle, power consumption went WAY down (mid-90's). DOS and Windows at the time used a lot more power, ran hotter, etc. Windows-based laptops had much shorter battery lives than Linux. So software CAN and DOES save power by being more efficient even when not using clock/frequency scaling. Does your computer get hotter when you run a kernel compile, run Gimp/Photoshop on some images and do transformations, or run a CPU-intensive game -- YES? Hotter == more power consumption.
A more efficient O/S CAN and DOES save power, improve the lifetime of hardware, etc.
Where the article may be specifically about taking advantage of speed-step and other power-saving technologies there are a boat load of things you can do to save power and hence cost for your organization:
1) run a more efficient O/S or optimize the O/S for lower power
2) run less spyware, background crap, etc. (or optimize the background stuff)
3) run a modern, efficient CPU with minimal amount of RAM and low-power disk (select lower-power hardware)
4) replace some hard disks with solid-state memory (FLASH)
5) replace some (10%?) desktops and laptops with low-power devices (e.g., OLPC but for business)
6) have a more efficient power supply (e.g., Google's proposal, or DC used in data centers)
7) replace monitors with lower-power LCDs
8) replace screen savers with blank screens and turn off hard disk after N minutes
9) turn computers off when not using them
10) get computers that support suspend/hibernate and use those features (work with your OEM's)
11) consolidate lots of servers onto fewer, more efficient servers (vmware/xen)
Some of these are simple. Some require changes in the supply chain. Some require a change by the PHBs (such as using OLPC-type devices). This is not a single dimensional problem space.
Note that Linux and open source can help with MOST of the above non-hardware items. OLPC is Linux and would make a great Internet terminal (we have dedicated computers for Internet - IBM PCs, desktops, etc., most could be replaced). The Linux kernel lead the way with using HALT in the idle cycle, and can lead again were they to really get suspend working well, optimize the kernel for power (as a compile option?). Open Source can help with better, more efficient apps that eventually use less power (more bloat => more power consumption).
A PR exercise is all. Personally I don't want anyone remotely working MY COMPUTER. Real energy efficiency should be done in the hardware. Eliminate the harddrive and the backlight. Put a transparent surface behind the screen and use natural light to illuminate it. Use a form of lcd that don't use power when not being written to. Use a combination of solar cells and batteries to extend usage. Power usage is a function of the system clock. The lower clock speed the less power is used. Design a processer and chip set that can function with a variable rate clock. When not in use the clock cycles down to a few tens of hertz therefore using less power. A wakeup unit kicks it back into full speed when a key is pressed.
davecb5620@gmail.com
As one of the "little people" I am deeply offended by this attitude. I believe I know what's best for me, and if it means not using hibernate mode, then it is my choice.
Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration, which is why engineers sometimes smell really bad.
This article is padding to attract readers for advertising.
There is absolutely no way that anyone or any organization could make a valid or truthful claim to being the greenest company on Earth with current resources.
The kind of research, testing and access to confidential company information necessary to do even a cursory Environmental Impact Assessment on one company, never mind hundreds or thousands of companies would be prohibitive to say the least.
Organizations like Greenpeace etc come out with nonsensical claims like this all the time. It's propaganda - pure and simple.
How am I to fight cancer if my PC keeps shutting down!
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Just think of all the power we could save if we just got rid of these stupid monitors and lcds, taught everyone Morse Code, and just communicated to the user through the Scroll Lock LED!
This rating is Unfair ( ) ( ) Fair (*) Funny
Sigh... If only. Modding would be so much more fun.
you install SP2, in which case I hope that 500mhz system has 512MB of RAM and you have more patience than before. Most are going to fail the RAM test, as systems of that era were 128/256 equipped.
SP2 really killed running XP on slower, older systems.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Ever hear of remote wake-up or ACPI? Even a Win98 box can be nudged out of Standby mode remotely. The network doesn't have to be fully operational 24 hours a day to receive updates and maintenance, and I doubt you're doing those updates and software installations every single night. If you are, you desperately need to rework your system because it's hanging on to life by a thread. I'm not talking about putting the computers involved in real-time processes, web servers, etc in sleep mode. That wouldn't make a lot of sense. But the dozens or hundreds of workstations the typical customer service department, the mail-room, and all the other clerical and administrative roles a large corporation has are completely unused after the employees leave and none of them except the management would ever have a need for logging in remotely. Not to mention in most of the offices I've worked in that had a Windows platform, usually NT 4 or 2000, all of the updates were run as a batch script when you first logged in. It required all of 5 minutes to complete and it gave you an excuse to go pour a cup of coffee on company time. And on a more cynical note, at least if the WSs were shutdown overnight that'd be 12+ virus- and crash-free hours not to have to worry about.
brandelf: invalid ELF type 'KEEBLER'
Hmm. It seems that the thriving ecosystem of spyware, viruses, worms and trojans is also the direct result of MS' coding practices. Or perhaps to be more precise because of fundamental design flaws in the product. Either way, the problem is not the user, but the vendor.
But that does bring up a very important second point. The "re-format and re-install" mantra has the effect of reducing competition because of the difficulty in auto-installing third-party software on MS-Windows. Unlike Red Hat's kick start or Debian's APT, the third party apps have to wait until they can be installed manually. In that case, especially for large scale sites, the IT dept decides it's too much work to go for best of breed and knuckle under to convenience. Even if they do go with third party apps, time limitations (lunch, meetings, end of shift, project deadlines, etc.) may intervene and prevent completion of installation of the third party apps. With 10's or 100's of millions of PC's, just shifting the frequency a small amount means large numbers of units.
Using a system which is not prone to spyware, viruses, worms or trojans and does well with low system requirements is also an option for many. Power users and hard core gamers may have trouble. Some, a surprisingly small number, of business apps may cause trouble. But low-tech users who just surf or e-mail or play music will do just fine and may not notice.
So there are three choices there:
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
You mean they are greener then 3d realms? Who have emitted nothing but hot air for years?
__
Thou hast besquirted me, O leotarded one.
Yes folks, computers use significantly less energy while displaying the blue screen of death. Microsoft saves the earth...
Never ascribe to malice what can be adequately attributed to ignorance. -Napoleon
I've just turned powersave features to ma
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This is yet another neat feature with Vista. The granularity of power management is powerful and really can save money in large numbers.
So software vendors put us on the upgrade treadmill. This means every few years many users and business must purchase new hardware to run the new, often bloated, software. Where does the old hardware go? Mainly into land fills at taxpayer expense where they leak nasty chemicals.
As long as this is the case no hardware or software manufacturer can claim to be 'green'. They are, instead, very 'brown'.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
That "one line of code" will keep your machine from booting thus saving you and the environment.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
I'd love to see you post some of your "software engineering" in response to this comment. Let me take a look and see if you are a "hack". Maybe I could learn from you by seeing some elegant C code. I love Slashdot, but I'm so tired of people bashing VB because it makes them feel smarter. Have you seen VB.Net? Are you aware that it is now an object oriented language with all of the powers (plus a few) of the other languages in the .Net IDE? I am a graduate of the University of Florida with a degree in Computer Science. I've programmed in many languages for the 7+ years since my graduation. I think that a bad programmer forces every task in the program specification into one language, simply because he feels it is superior. A good programmer knows the advantages and disadvantages of EVERY language, and chooses the language for the task...or better yet, chooses multiple languages for different aspects of the task and weaves them together. So if you'd like to post some code for me to evaluate, I'd be happy to post some VB code and we can let Slashdot decide who is the hack. ;-)
Completely agree about the failures occurring during a change in power status.
You are also correct on the after-hours updates. However, *if* you were just worried about the energy consumption then you could have the IT dept be responsible for shutting down all of the computers. If they needed to install patches/whatever, they work till they are done, *then* then shut down the computers (via a script/remote procedure). If you didn't have anything to do...have a cron job set to run at 6...you can leave early all while keeping the appearance that you actually work hard/long hours. The *best* sysadmins are the laziest ones (in a good way though).
Despite the startup/shutdown problem, this is a good thing. I understand trying to think actions/policies all the way through, but don't dismiss them because you can find a single (not to mention easily solvable) problem.
When I have a kid, I want to put him in one of those strollers for twins and then run around the mall looking frantic.
Microsoft has taken your request into consideration and shall endeavor to complete the following platform improvements by 14:00 UTC:
1 x 16'x64' to 32'x256' platform UPGRADE. Price: $200.00
1 x 32'x256' platform service pack 1 (145lbs). Price: free service
1 x 32'x256' platform reinforcement for service pack support. Price: free service
1 x 32'x256' platform area professional cleaning. Price: $100.00
1 x 32'x256' platform overcoat. Matte. Green. Price: $300.00
1 x 94" Ritchey-Chretien reflector (46' collecting, 189ft focal) to improve platform focus. Price: $10,000,000.00
1 x Fairly Green Advantage barricades to help Microsoft fight color theft. Price: free service
Total cost of improvements to platform: $10,000,600.00
Leftist dilemma alert! Stop corporate abuses, or save energy and CO2 emissions? You decide!
Simple solution: let MS do what it wants. I'll be unchecking that patch in Windows Update when it comes along. That being said, my power is nuclear so CO2 emissions aren't much of a factor.Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
...it's only because they are so envious of Apple's success in recent years, while they themselves can't come up with a decent iPod competitor and couldn't ship the next version of their OS without stripping it of all its decent features.
The article might be dumb as hell, but it did prompt me to actually go to my work pc's power settings and adjust them to help my pc save energy when I'm not using it (meetings, lunch). And as long as I'm not running out the door after work at top speed, I might even turn off my computer after work now.
This would be a great idea if Windows power management actually worked half decently. A lot of the Windows XP machines that I worked with crash when you put them into standby mode, and even more of them will not come back out of standby without an application hanging or a hardware device disappearing from the hardware profile until you reboot the system. I'm not sure if it's a problem with Windows itself or with the drivers that manufacturers are releasing (probably a mix of both), but it's certainly not something that I could rely on if I had open applications running when I was away from my desk.
I have a hunch that this blogger is a Mac user, and hasn't experienced how bad Windows power management can be. My Mac Mini comes in and out of sleep mode without any problems (as long as I don't have my HP printer plugged into it), but that's a lot easier for Apple to do considering that they more control as to what hardware and software goes on their systems.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
I mean, Microsoft is only, like, Microsoft's largest client. Imagine the loss in revenues if Microsoft switched to something like Apple!
From the headline I figured that it was a step away from becoming the richest company :P
Cheers!
They'll bundle it with 9 other 'fixes' that break everything else. Please - we're going to be stuck with IE7 breaking shit for weeks now that people are 'fixing' IE6 automatically.
I think it's time for a new online forum. Slashdot it really starting to suck. I've always been a Linux advocate and it's where my roots are, but I've never stopped opening my eyes to other technologies and vendors - commercial or open source. It just seems that every time I read anything with regards to MS, good or bad, you guys just sit here and bash them. I have no real problem with the company. They've helped a lot of people. Let's face it; they wouldn't be in business if they didn't. The fact that they have an opportunity to save some energy for the world by changing their software is great. I really wish people in this forum would quit looking over their damn shoulder and just get on with whatever they're purpose is in life.
/rant.
Furthermore, I think the entire article is a troll now that I read the whole thing. Why doesn't someone inform Linux to save energy as well? Not just _one_ distro, as mentioned by someone earlier, but all distros. Should MS be the only responsible party in the world of computer technology?
I hate to complain, but it would just be nice to be able to go read some good 'nerd news' that actually had substance. Even if it pertains to MS! A thread is a terrible thing to waste.
No upgrade to any OS should fiddle settings unless specific permission is granted to do this by the owner of the system being upgraded. The machines affected by possibly undisclosed and more or less mandatory resetting might actually be crunching away on a number of worthy projects where "empty" CPU cycles are utilized to the benefit of mankind. Powering down such machines is equivalent to slowing humanity's potential progress. Furthermore something like this would be akin to someone coming into your house switching the lights off because you were not in the room, even though you intentionally left the lights on for the sake of your kid who wakes up in the night and needs to navigate the hallway but is afraid of the dark. Mandatory upgrading and setting is a direct attack on your souvereignity and just a way to remove your freedom of choice in your own home.
If you truly want to save power - simply set a target in a law for the power consumption that a personal computer at the very most may utilize at a specific date X number of years in the future and a technical solution will be found by those companies who want to sell computers.
Doing it as an overall target like with one for Laptops one for Desktop systems - Heck think about Separate Displays for video (like flatscreen televisions) without mentioning any specific technologies like LCD, PLASMA - Microprocessors etc. but rather which devices we would like to consume less power in the future would allow lawmakers to legislate toward ideal consumption goals and the free market to compete and develop the technologies best suited to meet those goals.
Bear in mind such laws must be imposed on new systems alone as one cannot expect people to throw away systems they already have.
Problem solved less power consumed - And those running older systems.... well I suspect the nukmber of 80386 machines are still running out there are getting fewer by the day - The same goes for other and newer machines as people tend to upgrade their hardware once in a while.
So set a level of power consumption tolerated from new equipment - Set a target date - See progress
I don't need any company, government, or blogger to tell me what settings I should be using on my computer. It's configured one way for a purpose.
Even accepting the premise, how would this make MS a "green" company? The power saving features are really hardware features that are just supported by the software. In the end it is up to the computer owners to save power. The options are already there. If you really want a "green" computer, use the power saving settings. Or maybe buy a computer with a eden processor , or use a normal processor and underclock it!
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
These two paragraphs point towards the argument that such a forced "update" is a BAD idea.
First, the features are already there; if the users/administrators/whomever doesn't choose to activate the power-saving features for whatever reason, that is their decision. Perhaps I don't put my PC to sleep because I run some BOINC projects, or I use it often enough that the time and energy used coming out of sleep mode counters the savings, or it's a file/print server, or accessed remotely. In any event, it's my choice what those settings are.
Second, the second paragraph tells why this is a bad idea. How is MS going to know which systems are to "opt out" of the maximum energy saving settings? If you're going to pop up a dialog box to ask, then you might as well just have the dialog box point out how to make the changes manually.
Making computer hardware more efficient and "green" on a hardware level (materials, manufacturing processes, hardware power-saving features and the like) is a problem for the manufacturers. Making power-saving features available and easy to use on a software level is a problem for the software developers. Deciding which features to use and how to use them is, ultimately, up to the end users.
I will admit thought that the article has made me re-think my power-saving settings on a couple PCs I watch over, and I'll likely make some adjustments (esp since they are rarely used aside from the aforementioned BOINC projects). We bitch and moan about DRM and how we want to use our hardware/software as we see fit. While there is no DRM lockout here, isn't this the same idea, MS trying telling us how to power-manage our machines?
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
Parent is not a troll. He is completely correct. Anybody who throws out generalizations like "it's just a few lines of code" has no fucking idea what their talking about.
nothing
We don't save stuff to the PCs. They're saved on the server, which is backed up nightly and doesn't shut down. Thus, no need to back up the PCs.
I am the only one who left his computer on during the night downloading "things" with Utorrent?
"Nobody wants air traffic control computers to suddenly go into deep hibernation. But correcting for critical systems should be very simple for a company that churns out millions of lines of code every year."
This is why policy wonks should NEVER be allowed to write policy.
all your labrynths are in power-saving minitors!
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
The encryption used by DRM makes multimedia decoding use more CPU power!!
We are all doomed!!
What in the world does that mean? Did you mean to say 0.4 GB of memory or 0.4 GHz of processor power* to work?
* I don't think that's really a good metric for processor power either, but at least I have some idea what it means.
"You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy
Stop this stupid willy-waving "my box stays up longer than yours" game.
When you're not using it, turn the ****ing thing off.
(With an exemption for Americans, of course, because they don't believe in global warming, so they're allowed to do whatever they like.)
Unless they've changed it in the RTM version, the default action of the "Power" icon in Vista is to go into sleep mode. Unless the user jumps through several hoops to change this, or drills down to the real power off option, the machine will be sucking watts every minute of every day.
I'll be amazed if they can actually make it work reliably on known-good name-brand configurations. How many times have you seen a laptop with the cover half open because the user is (rightfully) afraid to close it?
This answer to making PCs "boot" faster is scandalous.
FIXME: Add a sig here
I wonder what effect something like this would affect distributed computing initiatives like Folding@Home and Seti.
These projects, I think, in part count on people running their machines during off hours.
Myself, I have folding@home installed on several windows machines at my work location...trying to take advantage of the fact that the machines are usually running 24X7.
Huh?
Even considering only software, a company isn't necessarily that green if it only concentrates on a narrow aspect of its production, distribution, and product lifecycle management.
Here are some other green considerations:
There is a lot more to being a green company than meets the eye.
Find environmentally and socially responsible products on http://buy-right.net
This is a typical case of trying to solve a people problem by changing a setting. Guess what? Users will get pissed, and just change it back. If Microsoft were stupid enough to take this guy's lead they'd be decried here on Slashdot in seconds, something like "Microsoft tells millions of paying users when their PC is allowed to be on."
The right way to solve this is to fix the cultural idea that a PC should always be on: Windows Update, Defrag, AntiVirus, and every single Distributed Computing project assume your machine should be on 24x7, even when you're gone. In some cases the software fails to work properly if you do shut down at night!
Anyway, the guy has a point - computers are on too much - but this definitely isn't the answer. Get the message out about Power Save features. Pass a law requiring all PCs to be able to Hibernate and recover from said mode as-shipped (this is rare!). Put Hibernate button on the keyboard that can wake the PC back up. And make sure no software counts on you running the computer but not using it!
When those things are in place, you'll see a lot more power savings going on.
A while back I bought a laser printer. It had a suspiciously good bang for the buck considering that it could do double sided printing. The box said "Optimized for Windows" on it. No problem, a printer is a printer is a printer. Plug it in, fire text at it, and the text winds up on the paper. Fire a few special character sequences at it, and graphics come out. So what if it has drivers that make that process especially efficient in Windows. Anyways, I brought it home, set it up, tried to get my Linux box to print to it, and failed. I tried redirecting text to /dev/lp0 without success. I rebooted the machine into DOS and tried printing from there. No dice. Yet the printer's status pages would come out no problem. A few hours of Googling educated me on a new class of abominations - "winprinters". Mindless zombie hunks of metal and plastic that cannot perform their designated function unless Microsoft Windows is pulling their strings and laughing maniacally. Sorry, no drivers for Macs, or Linux. Windows only.
I brought this abomination back to the store. They were going to refuse to take it back, because I had unsealed the toner cartridge. I pointed out that the box said "Optimized for Windows", not "Exclusively for Windows", or "Must be slaved to a Windows machine, because it isn't really a printer". Fortunately, there was a nice Samsung printer with Tux emblazoned on the side (along with the Apple and Microsoft logos) that was the same price, and the sales guy let me swap. Otherwise I would have been stuck with a $1200 paperweight.
Microsoft may not be a monopoly in the strictest sense of the word, but they are a monsterous company that wields enough power that other companies are willing to lie to, and cheat, their own customers just so they can put the magic word "Windows" on their box.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
glass bottles for Mom and Dad?
Take off every 'SIG'!!
A Microsoft story on Slashdot that didn't get the "itsatrap" tag? What's the world coming to?!
By limiting all their cars to only go 45 MPH.
Today, GM announced that with new computer settings int Hummer H2 and H3, The fuel economy
improves by 20% (Before: 10-15MPG. After: 12-18MPG).
This change is available for free at all Hummer dealers.
This change will save XXX million gallons of fuel per year, making GM the greenest company ever!
On the other hand, LCDs respond much faster to power on/off, so you can set a shorter delay. Since CRTs take a comparatively long time to warm up, there's a tendency to keep the delay rather long (at least 15 minutes). So with LCDs you should get more power saved than what you expect from the wattage difference.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
"1) run a more efficient O/S or optimize the O/S for lower power"
:)
Not "a few lines of code" as the article claims. Plus I believe Windows now supports idle/halt instructions.
"2) run less spyware, background crap, etc. (or optimize the background stuff)"
Again, not "a few lines of code"
"3) run a modern, efficient CPU with minimal amount of RAM and low-power disk (select lower-power hardware)"
Not "a few lines of code", not even "as much code as you can throw at it". Fundamentally not a software solution.
"4) replace some hard disks with solid-state memory (FLASH)"
Again, not a software solution.
"5) replace some (10%?) desktops and laptops with low-power devices (e.g., OLPC but for business)"
See 3) and 4)
"6) have a more efficient power supply (e.g., Google's proposal, or DC used in data centers)"
3) 4) and 5)
"7) replace monitors with lower-power LCDs"
3) 4) 5) and 6)
"8) replace screen savers with blank screens and turn off hard disk after N minutes"
About the only suggestion you've made so far that can be backported to XP. In fact, XP supports both of these already.
"9) turn computers off when not using them"
Can't be fixed in software by Microsoft.
"10) get computers that support suspend/hibernate and use those features (work with your OEM's)"
Again, this either cannot be solved in software, or requires more than the "few lines of code" the article claims.
"11) consolidate lots of servers onto fewer, more efficient servers (vmware/xen)"
More than a "few lines of code" and most likely also requires hardware changes.
Remember, fundamentally, the original article claims that Microsoft can cause huge power savings with a "few lines of code" improved in Windows XP. My counterclaim is that this is not possible without:
a) Improved hardware (Note "ready for Windows Vista" certification. Vista not only means a major software architecture, but potentially requiring hardware to support power management features for "Vista compatible" certification.) Not something MS can backport to XP.
b) Fundamental software architecture improvements. Already planned for Vista as far as power management, not easily backportable to XP in all likelihood.
Or, of course, Microsoft could send out an update that breaks all XP machines and forces users to switch to Linux.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
This just in... By being green Microsoft is actually worsening the global warming situation. According to a CNN article: air pollution may be just what the doctor ordered to combat global warming.
/phew
So we can concur that Microsoft is indeed still bad, they are still doing evil when they think they've done something good.
I was worried for a second, now I can go back to sleep.
/whisper/ Thanks for the candy!
I wished screen savers would pause/stop when DPMS come on. I noticed this in Windows and Linux so far. I also avoid 3D screen savers due to 3D card usage.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
With a hammer.
It's The Golden Rule: "He who has the gold makes the rules."
Win 95 / 98 ran the CPU hot while the machine was idling. n * 100 * million * hours * power consumption -> many power plants heating the atmosphere.
'Once scientists, even the dim-witted social scientists, get muzzled, the Western Civilization is finished.' - oldhack
I bet 50% of Windows machines out there has been deemed non-genuine and will now receive this 'upgrade' anyhow
Here's an idea for Microsoft, stop storing the energy saving settings in the registry as a binary value!
Because it's a binary value, it's impossible to use group policies to change energy saving settings across an enterprise (without using a 3rd party tool that essentially gets installed on every machine and does the string->binary conversion).
typical MS, that would be the furthest away from green. Now, you would be black
They tried something like this at one place I worked and it started causing computers to lock up and power supplies to fail. Most had something to do with overstressed capacitors (Dell GX270s but some GX520s were locking up as well)
Quoth TFAS: "Redmond should issue a software upgrade to every computer running Microsoft Windows worldwide to adjust each machine's energy-saving settings for maximum efficiency."
Except it probably wouldn't work. Ever since XP came out, when I try to save a new power management profile I get garbage like "revision levels incompatible" or it seems to save, but the new profile isn't there. I get similar problems on 2 very different laptops by two different manufacturers.
And there's the fact that it's only recently that hibernation works reliably if you have more than 1 Gig of RAM.
I wonder how many PC-hours of unnecessary on time there's been because MS made it such a pain in the ass to do anything else?
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
http://www.oberweisdairy.com/ - Oberweis Dairy
They're based in Illinois but I found them in a Rainbow Foods here in Minneapolis, MN. (at the Quarry location, just north up 35W from downtown & Dinkytown, for anyone that cares)
Bit spendy - I'm the only one out of my roommates that really drinks milk, so I only buy 1/2 gallon anyway - but at $2.99 + $0.85 deposit, they come in a glass jug. Costs an extra $0.70 over any other half-gallon, but in this case they're "better than organic." (Short answer: They'd be organic, except they allow cows to be pulled from the herd when sick and taken care of with antibiotics, but that cow's milk isn't allowed back into the shipments until it tests 100% clean of the antibotics)
So I get healthier milk, don't have to use jugs that will get thrown away - I take them with me when I go back for more and get my deposit back - I consider it a win.
I'll bet there's other companies around the US and North America as a whole that offer things like this.
Some power saving observations:
- No one at work bothers switching their computer to stand-by, or their monitors for that matter.
The excuse is usually about needing VPN access - with a central wake-on-lan server, this is easily remidied
- MS-Windows XP will fail to go into stand-by if certain applications are running (my observation)
Though strangely this behaviour went away when I upgrade my memory, so maybe it was excess memory
usage causing the issue.
- MacOS X has a nice feature which will allow you to have it go into stand-by or power-down at specific times
and also power-up or wake-up at specific times
- MacOS X on Intel machines saves a hibernate image when going into stand-by, so if power is lost it can still
come back from where you left off. And if power isn't lost you get the quick wake.
A question for anyone in the know: is it possible to retrieve the DHCP->IP address mappings from a BIND server or a MS DHCP server?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
So what you're saying is that there's a gap in the market which nobody thought about till now which could save companies thousands to millions of dollars a year in energy costs. Hmm.
Deleted
How is the parent comment insightful? or even accurate?
/. memo: Microsoft is a REAL monopoly. Has been, and continues to be. You are worse off for it and will only continue to be more worse off the longer you stick with it.
n g_for_unregulated_monopolies and I've got the graph explained in plainer english here. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=206320&cid=168 24770
t just amazes me that a community of people who run two, three, or more different OS's, on different hardware platforms
hmmm a few hundred? users versus hundreds of millions running on Windows? That's what you call a competitive marketplace? Apple meaningfully changing Microsoft's marketshare? Yet? How about ever?
I don't think you got the
See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly#Price_setti
What is the logical flaw in the parent comment called? I'd love to know.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Oh, sure, most folks never adjust their power usage settings, but I always do.
And I figure as long as I'm the one paying my power bills, nobody but NOBODY has any right to tell me how I should use electricity.
From the article: "Of course, this upgrade would have to allow critical systems to opt out. Nobody wants air traffic control computers to suddenly go into deep hibernation."
Air traffic control computers running Windows? I don't think so. BSOD = planes colliding in midair over major cities. Virus/Trojan/script_kiddie = planes colliding in midair over major cities. Fortunately, when I worked at Pearson, it was a big Vax, isolated from the network, that everyone was afraid to look at.
The mere suggestion is almost as stupid as voting machines running Windows. Oh wait...
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Sure, a software company can be pretty damned green -- if you don't count the manufacturing. How do they fare if you factor in the glossy packaging, holographic stickers, CD duplication, et cetera? Plus, there's all the hardware manufactured under their name. All the stuff they contract needs to be counted as well.
You, sir, are a fucking moron.
APM was designed by Microsoft and Intel. ACPI was developed by HP, Intel, Microsoft, Phoenix and Toshiba. If you want to piss, rant and rave about Microsoft's pisspoor implementation of ACPI then, by all means, go ahead, I'm not going to stop you as that was a colossal fuckup. But talking about MS alone fucking up the entire design of it is more than a little bit stupid.
And of course it didn't bash Microsoft hard enough for you. Unless they're bashed into the ground tirelessly, it's never enough.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
``But what about the impact on computing?''
Probably not much at all, given that the overwhelming majority of computers I see is not doing anything productive most of the time, anyway. People I know (including myself) who have set their systems to the lowest power mode supported often report no or little noticeable slowdown even when actively using the computer. Honestly, aggressive power saving (probably combined with automatically increasing clock speed when useful) is a very good idea.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Besides the impact on the environment, think of the impact this could have on spam. Given that the bulk of spam comes from infected Windows desktop machines that probably don't have to be on when nobody is using the keyboard and mouse, a scheme that automatically shuts down (or suspends) these machines after a couple of minutes of no user activity could severely reduce spam.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Linux still seems to have trouble with sleep states and hibernation. I never was able to get either working on my linux desktop, despite having very standard chipsets and hardware.
You switched AWAY from AS/400.
Tell my customers how so I don't have to support the fucking thing!
The reason I'm not using power management features is because every night, my computer needs to be awake for virus scans and backups (both making and receiving). I imagine many users are in the same boat. Power management needs to be flexible enough to accomodate these tasks, as well as the occasional vnc-in after hours.
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
Don't take this the wrong way but I can tell you don't have much experience at this level. I manage a hospital network with a thousand desktops and hundreds of thin clients. We have over 2 hundred servers (20 Unix, the rest Windows 2003 or 2k). You cannot assume that everyone will always use standard work hours, remote wake on lan is filled with problems I am sure you have not dealt with, and some updates or sofware installs can take 20 minutes to run. You can't assume that all of your hardware will operate identically because it is likely that the age ranges from brand new to over 4 years old. There are many issues related to this topic that from the unexperienced perspective are easy to miss.
I swear I didn't know it was loaded...
Twitter, you're a petulant cock-gobbling sycophant to Linux Torvaldyos! Quit taking DP from ESR's and RMS's feculent cocks and why dont you try to stop sucking quite so much? Get out of your parents' basement and see the real world - maybe then you'll see how pathetic you sound, with your neverending stream of bullshit about how Microsoft is stalking you. Wasn't it you who said that Microsoft believes your insane ranting is actually a threat to them, so they PAY PEOPLE to reply to you on Slashdot? No sir, I don't get any money. I do it for the love. Someone has to go up against your paranoid whining. So get back in your cage and shut the fuck up already.
And Gates the greenest man on Earth.
Thats what happens when you focus on getting the greens (Jeffersons).
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
...to save almost this much electricity. For example when your browser locks up with CPU at 90%+ and memory useage rocketing while IE7 spends minutes rendering an Ajax-heavy site. We've just spent two days tracking this problem down independently and it's unbelievable how inefficient this piece-of-shit feature is.
Reduce, reuse, cycle
I believe that the only company to ever benefit from working with Microsoft is Apple. I'm pretty sure that Microsoft bailed out Apple in its most troubled days only to keep a token competitor in the marketplace and avoid further anti-trust scrutiny. Apple, of course, was smart enough to hedge its bets by developing Safari and Pages so that it wasn't completely dependent on Microsoft.
All other Microsoft partners that I can think of, though, have gotten screwed.
Could this kind of energy saving patch be deployed to all Windows users via a Microsoft Update? It sure would be one non-security related update that I wouldn't mind having Genuine [dis]Advantage installed on my box for or forced on all Windows users.
Turn off monitor when not using. Never rely on microshafts hibernation and standby software.
Where's the 0xBEEF
Every single Windows PC I've had, ever, did not, or does not, wake up from sleep mode properly. The network is the biggest loser, with the PC simply failing to come back being the second most common problem. By Windows 98SE, Microsoft knew sleep mode was such a problem that they built in a system to check if it keeps failing to come out of sleep mode and asks you if you want to disable it, something like; "The last few times your PC entered sleep mode it failed to return to regular operation. Would you like to disable sleep mode?" Absolutely the best bit of code they ever wrote -- needs a "Hell Yes!" button.
Not to mention Vista's ridiculous hardware requirements, which make sure that computers, othervise fully functional and perhaps only a few years old, are dumped only to get Vista working decently.
I'd say that causes far more harm to the environment than simply keeping the computer on.
Microsoft the greenest company on earth? I guess this makes sense. Like, if you want to win the Nobel Peace Prize it helps to be an ex-terrorist.
of course it didn't bash Microsoft hard enough for you. Unless they're bashed into the ground tirelessly, it's never enough.
Wow, that's rich. Fuck off, stalker, and take your filthy writing back to Redmond where it belongs.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Or that the engine would shut itself down if you let it run stationary for 30 seconds.
The VW Lupo 3L did just that, and it gets 78 mpg.
Car companies could drastically reduce emissions is they would would just limit all internal combustion engines at 3000rpm. Think of what this would do for emission levels.
Considering it has a diesel engine, it probably never goes much higher than 3000 rpm. (TDIs redline around 5500.)
Not +5,Funny -- this is +5,GoodIdea.
There is no way MS would do this. My laptop has about a 95% chance of coming out of standby correctly and maybe 80% for hibernate mode. At least once a week I'll get tired of waiting for the something to wake up (I think the WiFi) and I do a hard reboot. How many MILLION computers will have similar problems? Ugh. What MS could do is produce a drop dead simple WOL system to wake up all the PC's 15 minutes before the "normal" work hours...
That, like many of MS gimmicks, sounds good in theory. However, many sites I run across have MS Windows admins that tell their users that such practices don't work with non-MS apps. If it were just one or two, I'd blame the third party vendor, but from where I stand MSI seems to have some impediments.
The fact that it's been out for so many years, yet still not widely utilized suggest some deficiencies or defects which prevent its use in practice. Either that or MS only shops are flat out lying when they tell users that other software can't be remotely installed. It's a message spouted at far to many sites for it to be an anomaly.
Perhaps individual programs here and there, though that's quite rare these days in general, and more or less a non-issue for medium and large projects/products. Even if it can occur, there are easy ways around it. In such a situation, odds are you're compiling locally. If you're doing that, then with only two or three extra steps, you can roll it into a local package which can then be handled automatically by the package manager such as APT or RPM.
If you follow any of the security lists, you'll find that's not quite the case. Removing admin access for the users helps a bit, but most spyware, rootkits, and other malware roll right in through MSIE or MS Outlook.
Anyway, the point is that users (aka customers) are not to blame for defects in the vendor's products.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Ahem. Excuse me.
Allow me to point out a few things.
Your turn, twit. I expect you to run away now and never reply to this comment, or even acknowledge it exists (except as some sort of proof that I stalk you about 2 months in the future, obviously), as is your wont, but maybe, just maybe, you'll grow a pair and perhaps admit that you might have been talking just a teensy bit of crap.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
I expect you to run away now and never reply to this comment, or even acknowledge it exists (except as some sort of proof that I stalk you about 2 months in the future, obviously)
Yes, it's obvious that you waste a large portion of your life stalking me.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Oh of course. I sit in my bedroom aaaall day silently refreshing your user page, for hours at a time.
Or I could just find it really amusing to point out all the stupid shit you say for a few minutes after work.
Now, hows about responding to the rest of the stuff in that post, or are you too pussy to admit you fucked up?
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
Because when all the PCs of my workmates failed to come out of hibernate/suspend mode, then the network connections failed as well ... the IT officers and I would get very heated, thereby taxing the air-conditioning to the point of overload!
Don't blame me, it's usually 2 in the morning when I post
http://savingenergy.wordpress.com/2006/11/21/savi