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Microsoft Internal Emails Show Dismay With Vista
bfwebster writes "Microsoft is currently facing a class-action suit over its designation of allegedly under-powered hardware as being 'Vista Capable.' The discovery process of that lawsuit has now compelled Microsoft to produce some internal emails discussing those issues. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has published extracts of some of those emails, along with a link to a a PDF file containing a more extensive email exchange. The emails reflect a lot of frustration among senior Microsoft personnel about Vista's performance problems and hardware incompatibilities. They also appear to indicate that Microsoft lowered the hardware requirements for 'Vista Capable' in order to include certain lower-end Intel chipsets, apparently as a favor to Intel: 'In the end, we lowered the requirement to help Intel make their quarterly earnings so they could continue to sell motherboards with 915 graphics embedded.' Read the whole PDF; it is informative, interesting, and at times (unintentionally) funny."
Click Start > Right Click 'Computer' > Advanced System Settings > Performance Settings > Adjust For Best Performance
Runs like a champ in a VM on my AM2 Sempron, with 512MB of memory allocated to it.
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're goin' and hook up with 'em later.
I have found that Windows server 2008 runs very well on a ~ 3 year old Dell 610 notebook, even when the system is locked into maximum battery life (and minimum performance) mode. It has a ~ 2GHz processor and 2 GBytes of RAM.
Playing graphics games costs CPU and GPU processing power. From my point of view, the reason to upgrade to Vista is its significantly higher security than XP, let alone the earlier OS's. Search is also very nice and quite useful.
The problem is that the OS is so badly designed and un-optimized that you can't run it on that kind of hardware. There isn't any good reason why Vista should have been slower than XP really, and fancy FX should have been turned on only on premium hardware. Many other OSes can do it after all. Leopard is doing just fine on a core 2 duo with GMA 950 GFX after all...
I'm running Vista Ultimate with Aero & dual monitors on an old 875 motherboard, 2.4Ghz Northwood, 1GB ram, Radeon 9600 AGP. No problems whatsoever and performance is fine for work apps (don't play games). I'm thinking of getting a couple of radeon 2400 cards (one AGP one PCI) so I can run three or four monitors.
Run and catch, run and catch, the lamb is caught in the blackberry patch.
LOL @ Mike Nash's complaint that his $2100 Sony was an email-only machine because it had the Intel 915 chipset that can't run glass or movie maker. Mike Nash is the Corporate Vice President, Windows Product Management.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
My company just bought a dozen new machines. Before buying I checked with our vendor that provides one of our business software products and was told that since we use Samba on our servers, Vista can not work with Samba. So we bought XP and have had not a single issue.
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
Basically, it was practically unusable with Vista, pretty good with XP, and I've fallen in love with Linux on it. Especially multi-tasking. People can say whatever they want about KDE or Gnome being slow. And yeah, if you have any even slightly older hardware running either of those two DE's on default settings then, yes, it will seem a bit sluggish until you reign the eye candy in a bit. But, as one that keeps a large number of programs and virtual desktops, etc. going simultaneously, nothing can touch *nix for multi-tasking. It's just so smooth, it's utterly amazing. Since I've gotten going here and all, I'll also mention that I make extensive use of virtual machines. VMware never ran so smoothly on XP or Win2K for that matter. It feels seemless. You fullscreen your VM and put it into exclusive mode and you will forget that you aren't on the bare metal. With Windows there was always some little stutter or jerky mouse, or something that broke you out of the moment and reminded you that you were in a VM. Linux really is amazing. I can't speak for the BSD's since I don't have any experience but if they're anything like as good as Linux, Microsoft has something very serious to worry about in the long term.
And that's my 2 cents. Sorry for the rambling. I haven't had my coffee yet. Going now.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
512 is XP "barely adequate?" For what?
From what I have seen, for 98% of things in XP 512MB is enough on a properly configured system. I'd say for XP that 128mb is "barely adequate."
It really depends on what you're doing. Personally, I like to have 2GB or more, especially if we're talking Vista, but 512MB is XP is fine for everything but serious gaming or trying to burn a DVD while multitasking.
Nearly all OEMs still allow you to upgrade to XP, but you have to ask. They won't tell you about it, you have to be active about it. But then, those that make active decisions about hardware and systems rarely end up with Windows, let alone MS Vista. Lots of people are getting burned by leaving too much of the decision up to the sales staff.
But even if you can't upgrade to XP, unless she's playing heavily some games that don't run in WINE or surfing a lot of WMV porn, then she'll get more mileage out of a linux distro like CentOS and Kubuntu. Try it. If they suck, then you can crow about it. If they save you time and effort, then it was time well spent and you can go around to any MS Vista users and rub their noses in it. Nowadays even Photoshop runs in WINE.
If it's for school only, then the 13" macbook is perfect for the backpack and can run your choice of Linux or OS X or both, plus a number of legacy applications from Windows.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
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From what I have seen, for 98% of things in XP 512MB is enough on a properly configured system. I'd say for XP that 128mb is "barely adequate."
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Unless of course you like to run Photoshop, or you have a need to run Word and Dreamweaver at (gasp!) the same time, or you like to play mp3s while working or a number of other situations.
Novice users - you might say - are not going to be running Photoshop, but I will be that they *will* have a large number of applications open at once, without thinking anything of it.
I would argue that 512 was ok for 2000, but is inadequate for XP or (god forbid) Vista.
"Are you fucking kidding me? That's really in Vista? If it's a checkbox, why isn't it checked by default? If it's a slider, what does the other side say? "Needlessly consume CPU cycles"? "I'm stupid, tell me where to buy new hardware"?"
There are four radio buttons:
- Let Windows choose what's best for my computer (default)
- Adjust for best appearance
- Adjust for best performance
- Custom
The first radio button is selected by default, and at least on my system, is the same as "Adjust for best appearance", which is what I would expect to be selected by default. This might be different on lower powered machines.
The "Custom" option lets you enable and disable about two dozen fine grained options such as "Slide taskbar buttons", or "Smooth edges of screen fonts".
Here is a summary for those that don't want to read the PDF:
Early 2006: Microsoft got cozy with HP to make sure that HP invested in a better graphical experience for Vista. Intel had to make its quarterly earnings and convinced Microsoft to call their chipset "capable" even though it couldn't meat the graphic standards. Microsoft had explicitly told HP that they wouldn't do this, but they, led by some dude named Will Poole, decided to bone HP to make Intel (specifically some SVP chick named Renee-most likely Renee James) happy. Then MS discussed how they are going to try to play it off to intel with some fancy obfuscating letter. They got this guy at MS named Jim Allchin to sign off on it, which he reluctantly did, but chastised them for pulling this crap. Some dude named Mike Ybarra pointed out to Jim that they are boning HP and their customers just to get cuddly wuddly with Intel and Jim seemed to agree, but figured the wheels were in motion and could not be stopped. Mike specifically said, "We are caving to Intel... We are really burning HP... We are allowing Intel to drive our consumer experience..."
Fast forward a year later and some board member John Shirley sends some borderline literate guy named Steve Balmer an email about how his shit won't work with Vista and that some of the stuff may never get Vista drivers. They surmise that vendors didn't trust them to deliver Vista (gee, wonder why) so they didn't make drivers. Balmer sends an email to some guy named Steven Sinofsky asking about the driver situation. Sinofsky agrees that vendors didn't expect them to ship and also says that changes to Vista made it so XP drivers wouldn't work, he questions how smart it was to call the Intel chipset "capable" when it wasn't, and says that they need to be clearer with the industry. Then some exec named Mike Nash points out how his company boned him because he bought a $2100 "Vista capable" laptop that is only good as an email machine.
In the end, some exec John Kalman says that lowering their standard for Intel screwed them and they won't make such a stupid mistake with Windows 7.
In short, Will Poole is a weasel who is just trying to make some Intel chick happy. Mike Ybarra is too thoughtful and has too much foresight to work at MS. Jim Allchin needs to go with his gut and remind Will Poole which side of the desk he sits on. Steve Ballmer is missing some keys on his keyboard. Steven Sinofsky and Kohn Kalman have 20/20 hindsight. HP deserves to kick somebody's ass at MS. They should probably kick Intel's ass too, but MS is too busy licking it.
From what I can see, that's pretty much what it does. So in order to get good performance on Vista, according to Microsoft, you need to roll it back to Windows 2000 look-and-feel.
Breakfast served all day!
Please, please, PLEASE stop spreading the utter trash about the "dos aint done till lotus won't run" as if it is some sort of truth. It is not. Repeating it just makes you appear to be either a troll, or someone who unfortunately believed the misinformation trolls that post this crap on this site.
Please read the first few links on this search result and stop yourself spreading FUD in the future
And please, spare me the comments about being a M$$$ $hill. I have no affiliation with microsoft, I just really hate it when people spread misinformation on this site, which then gets repeated infinitely as if it were truth. The less FUD coming from, and aimed at microsoft, the better.
*blinks* Are you for real? 512MB is quite adequate for XP. That's what my wifes machine had before I upgraded it and that only because the RAM was on sale. I have a good dozen programms running in WinXP Pro and I have... wait for it.... 547MB used... So, yes, it would hit a bit on swap... However, with a good swap out strategy , it would be stuff I rarely use (if Windows has a good swap out strategy is another discussion). 512MB for XP is very adequate.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Just for another reality check: I ran Windows XP Pro on a 600MHz P-III with 512Meg RAM for about two years. That machine was absolutely usable and I could run iTunes, OpenOffice.org 2.0 (at the time), Firefox 1.5.x, Thunderbird 1.5.x, AVG Antivirus, Gnucleus, Truecrypt, GAIM (Pidgin, back then it was called GAIM), and "Media Player Classic" at the same time. Heck, even Eclipse (not know for its frugality on the memory aspect) ran just fine for smaller projects. I only bought a new laptop because it physically started to fall apart!
Anyone saying that 512MB for XP is borderline has simply no clue.... I'd say that 512MB is advisable as a minimum, but it will work great if you have 512MB.
Yes, this was a fully patched XP SP2....
The fun part is that upgrading the harddisk had more impact on the performance than going from 256MB to 512MB. (It was a laptop and the old laptop harddisk was really, really, slow...
My dad uses a P-III 733MHz/512Meg RAM laptop with XP Pro to this day.... Yes, he's a poweruser and does database stuff with his laptop. It's amazing.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Robin Leonard, a Microsoft employee, wrote that Wal-Mart is "extremely disappointed in the fact that the standards were lowered and feel like customer confusion will ensue.
If Walmart is complaining about quality, then you've really dumped a steaming turd into the marketplace.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!