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Researchers Sour on Vista Service Pack 1 Performance
Stony Stevenson passed us a link indicating that a group of researchers has described Microsoft's upcoming Windows Vista Service Pack 1 as basically a performance dud. Researchers from the Devil Mountain Software group is claiming that a series of in-house benchmark tests showed that users hoping to receive a speed boost from the update will be disappointed. "Devil Mountain ran its DMS Clarity Studio framework on a laptop Barth described as a "barn burner" -- dual-core processor, dedicated graphics, and either 1GB or 2GB of memory -- to compare performance of the SP1 release candidate that Microsoft released last week with the RTM version that hit general distribution last January. The Vista RTM was not updated with any of the bug fixes, patches or performance packs that Microsoft has pushed through Windows Update since the operating system's debut. 'One gigabyte, 2GB [of memory], it didn't make a difference,' said [CTO Craig] Barth. 'SP1 was never more than 1% or 2% faster.'"
Yes, they did. In the SP 1 white paper. They talk a lot about some of the specific improvements, and are sort of vague on exactly why there'd be an overall performance increase. They certainly give the impression it would improve overall performance.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
Do some research and you'll find you don't need a service pack to tune Vista:
Turn off: Volume Shadow Copy (files won't be versioned automatically any more), indexing service (rapid searching won't work any more), and SuperFetch (apps wont be pre-loaded and so will start slower, but you'll have more "free memory" on average - a debatable benefit anyway).
You'll notice XP levels of disc activity (barely any) and lot's more free memory. That's because Vista's not doing anything. Personally, I like to be able to search instantly, have apps load instantly, and have my critical files backed up transparently; so I don't mind the "bloat".
Anyway, if you actually know how Windows works, you'll know what you don't want running and what you do. Turn off the stuff you don't want, but most people are fine with the defaults even if it means using more resources.
throw new NoSignatureException();
Here is what Microsoft specifically claimed about SP1 performance (thanks to faoli for the link):
Performance
The following list describes some of the performance improvements that Windows Vista SP1 will include
Improves the speed of copying and extracting files.
Improves the time to become active from Hibernate and Resume modes.
Improves the performance of domain-joined PCs when operating off the domain; in the current release
version of Windows Vista, users would experience long delays when opening the File dialog box.
Improves performance of Windows® Internet Explorer® 7 in Windows Vista, reducing CPU utilization and
speeding JavaScript parsing.
Improves battery life by reducing CPU utilization by not redrawing the screen as frequently, on certain
computers.
Improves the logon experience by removing the occasional 10-second delay between pressing CTL-
ALT-DEL and the password prompt displaying.
Addresses an issue in the current version of Windows Vista that makes browsing network file shares
consume significant bandwidth and not perform as fast as expected.
Hmm, file shares are slow? Perhaps Microsoft should switch to Samba, which is fast.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?