Inside the Windows Vista Kernel, Part 2

BuR4N writes "Mark Russinovich takes a look at the Windows Kernel and the changes made in Vista. In this second part he describes the workings of the features SuperFetch, ReadyBoost, ReadyBoot, and ReadyDrive and how they improve system performance."

Comments

Re:Is this REALLY secure?

[Dog-Cow]

It's far, far more likely that you are an unmitigated idiot.

The ONLY reason to encrypt the cache is because it's on a removeable drive. As long as the key is kept in memory, it's secure. And whether MS implemented AES on their own or purchased a 3rd-party implementation, there is only your bigotry to suggest that it would be any more flawed than anyone else's.

"how they improve system performance"

[Anomalyst]

In reality it is a GIANT step backward, without even askin "Mother May I". Just bought an HP dv6205us (MEsta Home version) notebook 512M Core Duo. Added 2 (Two!) 1GB "fast" USB drives for caching (sorry, I wont promulgate their asinine market terms). This machine, with all these "advanced" assists takes far longer to boot and login than a slower single core AMD with XP pro without these crutches.
It takes the UAC more than 10 seconds to flag an sudo escalation. Earlier on /. it was proposed that one needs 4GB to hit the "sweet spot" the fsking hardware will only do 2GB!
Oh, let us not forget the lovely artificial constraints about joining a home network and the ability to establish a local policy. The primary purpose if this OS (and the company attempting to shove it down our collective throats) is about restricting what you can do with the hardware and software for which you paid money and try extort more from you for capabilities that should be there from the get-go. There is NO "genuine advantage" in using this steaming pile. Stay with XP if you must, better yet, re-install with the *nix distro of your choice. It is going to be YEARS before the current mess is patched to usability on a current average machine and you'll still be laboring under the yoke of what THEY decide you may or may not do.

XP, Vista, and Silk Purses

[Prototerm]

After several weeks using Vista, I'm back to XP, not only for the usual reasons (Apps that don't work, nVidia drivers that blue screen), but because Vista is a *pig*!

When I went from Windows 2000 to XP, I was startled at how much of a pig XP was. In short, it seemed bigger and slower, even on adequate hardware. As proof of this, note that one expert recently commented that the "sweet spot" on XP is 2 GB of RAM. Now, compare that with Vista, where the same author claims the "sweet spot" to be 4 GB.

Oink, Oink!

From the description of all this ReadyCrap (TM) in Vista, it appears that the entire OS has been designed for hardware that would make a professional gamer blush. Oh, I understand that it doesn't *require* 4GB of memory, but this is definitely the Cray Supercomputer version of Windows.

And beyond memory usage, don't get me started on how many CPU cycles this pound of bacon consumes at idle. No wonder they want you to use a Mega-Multi-Core Processor.

Oink!