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Windows Vista SP1 Hands-On Details
babyshiori writes "Users of Microsoft Windows Vista can rejoice in the fact that Microsoft just released a preview of the Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Release Candidate! The build is the lead-up to the actual service pack, which will be made available to even more testers at a later date. 'In our early tests with the beta, we saw some small improvements in boot time on an HP Compaq 8710p Core 2 Duo notebook. Before SP1, the laptop took 1 minute, 51 seconds to boot. After the update, that figure dropped by almost 20 seconds. Microsoft is also touting improvements in "the speed of copying and extracting files," so we tested a few of those scenarios. We noted a slight increase in the time required to copy 562 JPEG images totaling 1.9GB from an SD Card to the hard drive of the aforementioned HP Compaq notebook.'"
From TFA;
According to Microsoft, typical load times for the final version should range from 30 to 60 minutes. The installation requires 7GB of free hard-drive space (some of which will be reclaimed after the installation isn complete), though the finalized install file itsel is expected to be a 50MB download via Windows Update.
Is this a service pack, or a fresh install replacing most of the core files? Really, should a service pack take that long to install, and require that much space? To put it into context, after a year of use, this XP machine's Window's directory totals somewhere in the region of 3gb.
Looking at my current Vista laptop, I wouldn't be able to install the SP without removing some of my music files first...
Is this a joke?
Thanks to all of the issues with Vista, its got a bad reputation. It requires a modern computer, yet most people are happy with what they have, and don't have any reason to migrate to Vista. I am actually extremely satisfied with Vista, but I got Vista Premium from my school, so I didn't pay directly for it. I also have a fairly beefed up computer (3 GB RAM). The problem isn't bugs or boot times, its running times, Vista is just about as fast on 3 GB RAM as when I has 1 GB RAM and was using XP. Now that I've gotten used to it, I like the way Vista does things. But again, people like me don't decide Vista's success, its people who went out and got a $600 computer 5 years ago, and have only known XP. What percentage of people who use a computer today ever used Windows 3.1? Windows 95 through XP are very similar in terms of operation. Vista is a fairly big shift, and getting millions of people who only understand one set of GUIs to change GUIs is an almost impossible task.
I bought a new computer shortly after Vista was released. My old PC had been getting on in years, and when it died I picked up my current laptop to replace it. I was a bit uncertain about using Vista since I had heard so many bad reviews about it, but it came pre-installed so I figured I would give it a go. After a few months of using it, I realised I was right to be worried. At least on my laptop, it was slow as hell, and buggy. It would freeze for no reason, and crash out of programs that XP had run without a hitch. Several of my friends had similar experiences. I considered going back to the store and requesting a tech have a look at it, but having worked in a similar place myself, I figured they wouldn't be able to do anything that I hadn't tried myself (and at the very best, they would send it away to be "looked at" and I would be sans laptop for a few weeks). So instead, I uninstalled the OS, and reinstalled XP SP2. My machine is now flying along and hasn't crashed since.
The desktop that died on me had been running Windows 2000 for over five years, after which I upgraded to XP when I friend offered to give me an install CD he no longer needed. I ran 2k for that long because it met my needs, and was more stable and powerful than the versions of Windows I had used previously (3.11/95/98/ME). The only reason I switched was out of curiosity, and with SP2, XP became the best Windows I had ever used.
I wasn't curious about Vista, but because of circumstances, I ended up trying it anyway. It was an absolutely terrible experience, and I am so glad to be back to my nice, stable XP. So, there's a lesson for Microsoft to learn. They had an opportunity to get a user onboard with their latest OS, but they blew it so badly, that I am now likely to keep on using XP for the next five years, and if I need to switch operating systems then, I am more likely to go with Linux, or buy a Mac.
Macbooks can boot into Leopard in about 30 seconds, and we can start our 7 year old Linux boxes at work in less than a minute....how does Microsoft get away with this kind of stuff?
Monstar L
It's funny the lengths MS is going to in order to hasten Vista adoption. Halo 2 for Windows was released not long ago. That's right, Halo 2. The old game from about 3 years ago that ran on a Pentium 750. Now the PC version is nothing special (as with Halo 1 suitably crippled to make the XBox look good), but it requires, you guessed it, Vista.
Of course there's no reason the game code actually needs Vista to run and in fact there's a patch (in the form of a DLL) that lets you run it under Windows XP but I just find it interesting how desparate MS seems in obsoleting XP.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
My experience is that it just doesn't. Couldn't get Windows Update to run even sending the update log and system config info repeatedly to Microsoft Tech Support. Seems they couldn't figure it out, either.
I'm back on XP (at least for gaming) and using MEPIS or OS X for productivity and multi-media respectively.
But I'm glad it works for you. I really am.
The opposite of progress is congress
>When you guys get excited about a pre-release of a service pack, you're in enormous need of fresh air.
.. etc.)
Why shouldn't people be interested. I use Vista day to day, I'm curious if some of the issues (performance mainly) I came across have been addressed.
>Nothing fixes Vista because XP wasn't broken.
Before Vista came out, if the collective was to be believed, XP was pointless, because win2k was the pinnacle of Windows OS. If there's nothing wrong with XP, then use XP.
(Also there was nothing wrong OSX Tiger what was the point of Leopard? There was nothing wrong with Gnome 2.14, whats the point of Gnome 2.20