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32bit Win7 Vs. Vista Vs. XP
An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet's Adrian Kingsley-Hughes tested the latest Win7 build against XP and Vista and came to a surprising conclusion: Win7 performs better than the other 2 OSs in the vast majority of the 23 tasks tested. Even installation. 'Rather than publish a series of benchmark results for the three operating systems (something which Microsoft frowns upon for beta builds, not to mention the fact that the final numbers only really matter for the release candidate and RTM builds), I've decided to put Windows 7, Vista and XP head-to-head in a series of real-world tests...'" This review shows only a 1-2-3 ranking for each test, so there's no sense of the quantitative level of improvement.
Linux can handle 32-bit applications on 64-bit OSes. Surely MS can do the same?
Of course they can, and do. Vista x64 runs 32 bit apps just fine.
Unfortunately MS doesn't have the source for all the devices out there, and can't just recompile all of those to be 64-bit, and the 3rd party vendors that can do it, would rather not spend the effort -- hell, they kicked and screamed and did a half-assed job of updating their drivers to work with Vista in 32 bit (the main source of most real Vista woe).
It isn't useless. It isn't "subjective" since it's based on actual objective measurements. It conveys the indication that Windows 7 has *broad* performance improvements.
It has been suggested that exact numbers were not given due to the beta's EULA clause that prohibits benchmarking against the pre-release build.
If he tested all 3 OSes on the exact same hardware configuration and compared those results, then the tests results are valid.
My major problem with these test results is that he ranked them 1, 2, and 3. He should have put in the actual amount of time these tests took so we could see how much big of a difference it is. 1, 2, 3 tells me nothing. The difference between 1 and 2 could be 0.01% or 5000%.
He tested things like moving files around, compression, decompression... This is all good and fine, but it's probably not the thing that most people "feel" when they use a computer. What I would like to know is how snappy or sluggish does the operating system "feel" when using it for every-day tasks? Does everything halt while the hard drive cranks away when you click a menu? Do the GUI animations help use the computer or do they simply slow you down? That's the sort of thing that matters to most users. How often do you really have to move 100 MB or 2.5 GB of files around?
Installing kernel level software that isn't certified for the OS you are using isn't the smartest thing in the world to do.
The general feeling around here is that no-one WANTS to believe it is even possible that Windows 7 doesn't suck. Because if that were true, that would sort of devalue everything done to improve Linux the last few years. (because if Windows 7 is fast and stable and lets you play games, that doesn't leave any room for Linux on the desktop)
It could actually be that Microsoft got it right. It may be that the core of Vista is not as terrible as we all think it is. I've seen posts discussing how Vista uses a completely refactored kernel, with more layers of abstraction and cleaning up of many of the quirks of win32.
Then, on top of this decent foundation, they overloaded it with poorly thought out gimmicks in an attempt to compete with Apple. In addition, some of their rewrites introduced new bugs, such as the networking problems where Vista machines are unable to talk to shared file servers.
It's possible that Windows 7 succeeded. If they fixed the bugs, and ripped out some of the bloated, inefficient Vista code then you might have a decent OS after. Microsoft might be a monopoly, but if they sat on their heels for too long, eventually (it might take 10 years) alternatives would overtake them.
There is no excuse for MS supporting any legacy code in Win7. None. Zero. Zip.
If they were halfway competent, they would port VirtualPC to Win7, include a modified copy of XP that will only run 1 program at a time, and include drivers to share the clipboard between the host and the guest. A little configuration magic so that launching the virtual machine also launches the application instead of a desktop, and virtually 100% all current software would not only work, but could be sandboxed by default. If they really wanted to do things right, they would include images for every version of Windows and MS-DOS ever released. This would not only improve security, clean up the API DRAMATICALLY and keep only one code base which would be fully 64-bit but it would also make Win7 by far the MOST backward compatible version of Windows ever released. Hell, they could make even make it XBox 1 compatible and let all of their partners re-release all of their XBox 1 games as "XBox Classic".
Of course, this would have the negative side effect of not letting them claim that backward compatibility was the reason for all of the crap in Windows.
You may not disclose the results of any benchmark tests of the software to any third party without Microsoft's prior written approval.
What the author did was within the bounds of the EULA since he didn't disclose the results (the numbers).
What really frustrates me though is that you would suggest that the author is LYING. What gives you the right to make such accusations? Are you working on some kind of historical precedent? Do you know the author personally? Has he lied before? Or are you just being a douche? I can completely understand if you want to see the raw data, so do I. But really, I thought Slashdot attracted a smarter caliber of readers who don't have to result to personal attacks. Apparently, I was wrong.
For the record though, the relative performances he gives us are a valuable indicator. Are you saying that a race scored based upon who crossed the finish line first instead of a stop watch is not a valid way to measure the performance of the athletes in it, because I can think of plenty of sports (even a few Olympic ones) that are scored this way. That makes no sense. Maybe next time, you should think before you post.
Scheduler in Vista also performs worse than on XP (so MS had to resort to such hacks: http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2007/08/27/1833290.aspx [technet.com] ).
Saying this with the link you provide pretty much discredits anything you continue to say.
You have no idea what you are talking about...
Here:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2302499,00.asp
Make sure you read the PCMark, then click Next to go to the Gaming Page. Vista outperforms XP in every test. (The only test it is a couple of points behind is the synthetic 3DMark.)
And this is SP3 - the fastest XP compared to Vista.
So go on again about how horrible the scheduler is in Vista, I am guessing you don't even know what a scheduler does and especially I know you don't know how it works in NT.
If you want to put your hands over your ears and eyes and keep screaming, "Vista is slower", try clicking your heels together too, it is as likely to make it true and take you to Kansas.
The Vista is slower myths need to stop and the idiocy behind them is really getting annoying.
Windows is working with them to develop security software. So, what actually happened is your friend installed a Beta test of an OS, and then installed a technical preview beta of antivirus software and on his hardware something goes wrong.
As long as he reported the issues to MS, then it all seems like standard operating procedure for using test software running on a test OS.
1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg