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PC World Tests Final Version of Vista SP1
Mac writes "PC World ran the final version of Windows Vista SP1 through a first set of tests last night. Here's the bottom line: 'File copying, one of the main performance-related complaints from Vista users, was significantly faster. But other tests showed little improvement and, in two tests, our experience was actually a little better without the service pack installed than with it.'"
... the sky is typically blue, the grass is mostly green, and the Pope is Catholic.
I un-installed Vista about 6 months ago and returned to XP. The main reason is because I simply didn't think that the main issues I had with it (some outlined in this article) really could be fixed... at least not with a service pack release or other patches. It seemed to me that the focus with Vista simply had shifted more to the shiny eye candy for end users, and that when you focus on the pretty stuff the necessary stuff will logically be less efficient.
I do have some reasonable high hopes for this new MinWin, but until then, I'll just continue to expect more tests and benchmarks like this one.
Proudly supporting the Libertarian Party.
In case anybody is interest *why* Vista pre-SP1 seemed so much slower copying files than XP, and why post-SP1 for the most part fixes it, you should check out Mark Russinovich's blog post on the matter.
It's a very interesting read.
I've been running the SP1 Release Candidate for a while now and it has improved networking greatly (resuming from Sleep the network is available again immediately unlike pre SP1 where there was quite a lag), and on that front the network discovery and usage of my LAN is better than XP. (Machines are found more reliably and it all just works much more smoothly).
My biggest gripe with Vista has been the DVD Maker. I look upon OSX users with envy because of their iLife. I don't have HUGE needs for my digital media, but I would like to be able to throw one or more videos onto a DVD with a nice menu. I used to be able to do this without effort with Nero, but the version I have was an OEM that doesn't work with Vista.
So, I turned to what Vista has, and was thrilled to see DVD Maker, a simple program that seemed to do pretty much what I wanted and made really, really pretty menus with no hassle.
EXCEPT IT DOESN'T WORK.
I haven't had one successful DVD made using this dang thing.
I have tried burning DVDs with video taken straight from digital free to air tv (so already in DVD resolution and MPEG2 encoded), I've tried Divx files, I've tried everything. While you're creating the DVD in DVD Maker it shows EVERYTHING perfectly. If it burned the disc the way it SHOWED it in the program it'd all be fine... except what does it do?
One of two things:
* Fail with cryptic error at 99% of burn process (except it actually hasn't even touched the blank DVD)
OR
* Burn the disc successfully, but turn all widescreen material into squished 4:3 content... leaving only beautiful 16:9 menus working correctly.
It's utterly infuriating and is the only thing that has made me want a Mac really... just iLife... if I could have that on Windows I'd be happy.
We tried running Vista and it was, on average, twice as slow as XP, so we just gave up and won't install it on any boxen in our labs.
We have real work to do and shelling out cash for graphics cards we don't need for an OS that runs even slower is a total waste of time.
Most of our boxen are now Linux-only or Linux/XP dual boot now - performance matters, and making it only 45 percent slower than XP when it was 50 percent slower won't cut it in a production environment.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
TFA talks about the difficulties of copying files. Interesting but: so what? Does it explain why XP manages to do better? And what about linux which for most of the time had none of the needed info yet implemented NTFS and SMB and likely copies stuff faster than Vista? Vista has a heap of open source software to get inspiration from. Smart ass comments seems still justified.
Wow man and that earth shattering file copy speed was on a 3GHz dual core machine - 1000 machine cycles for each byte transferred. Does MS realize that modern tape drives have a MINIMUM speed of 32MB/s? LTO-3 tapes don't go any slower. So will MS be selling paper tape backup systems or do we need punch cards? Just thinking of what they must be doing wrong to make Vista this slow, makes my head hurt.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!