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mohaymens
Posted: Wednesday, April 15, 2009 10:55:24 PM
Rank: I'm new around here

Joined: 10/27/2008
Posts: 2
It has been 2 years since the release of Windows Vista to the consumers. You will probably find Windows Vista installed in most of the computers released since the second or third quarter of 2007, except recent netbooks. Everyone had really high hope for Windows Vista since it took more than 5 years to release the operating system after the release of Windows Xp. All the initial reviews, previews before the retail release were mostly positive. Most bloggers were talking about the new user interface, i.e. the Aero glass interface, flip 3D, Super Fetch, Ready Boost, Sidebar Gadgets and so on. They are all really admirable new additions to Windows indeed, though not something totally new. For example, using 3rd party softwares, anyone can change the skin of Windows Xp and make it transparent like aero glass. Consumers have been using Google Deskbar gadgets and yahoo widgets for long even before release of Windows Vista. But still Windows Vista really is a feature rich version of Windows and more secure compared to any previous release.

When customers actually got their hands on Vista and started to use it for their everyday task, things turned out to be different. Under the lovely skin of Vista, some huge problems began to take shape. The first complaint that started to spread was the incompatibility of hardware. Now for this one, I don’t think Microsoft is solely responsible. It’s also hardware manufacturers’ duty to develop compatible drivers for their products. But there was another problem with Windows Vista which really halted the growth of the operating system. Windows Vista is actually an extremely slow resource hungry operating system. At first I thought, since it’s a brand new operating system with lots of new additions and new user interface, so it’s probably the old hardware that’s causing all the sluggishness. But that’s not actually the case; Vista is by its nature very sluggish. In my next section of this blog I am going to explain a real life scenario that I have been experiencing for last 2 years or more.

I actually started using Windows Vista even before the retail release. First I installed the RC1 version of the operating system and used it for 3 months for my everyday purpose. That time I had a Pentium 4 based computer which according to Microsoft website not only meets the minimum requirements for vista home premium and ultimate but also meets the recommended requirements and even exceeds it by some margin. So user experience was supposed to be really smooth on that machine. I performed a clean installation after formatting my hard drive, but when I started to use the computer, I found it took less time to boot to desktop. Addition to that, every time after initial boot, the hard disk constantly spinned really hard for up to approximately 5 minutes. During this constant hard disk activity, computer became really slow and almost non responsive. In fact some applications didn’t load at all. But as soon as that spinning was over, everything started to run super fast. I have no idea what vista tried to do after the initial boot for 5 minutes. That meant, in practice even though the desktop takes less time to boot than windows xp, everything becomes fully responsive after no less than 5 minutes. Vista’s sluggishness didnt stop here. Unfortunately this operating system is really fond of giving the hard disk a hard spin very frequently, especially when in idle mode or after installing new software or making any other changes. For example, in the middle of watching a movie or listening to music, suddenly the hard disk started spinning by making the movie run really slow and with shuttering sound. Windows vista is also very slow to transfer large files from one place to another and file transfer speed between network computers is extremely slow as well (after the release of Vista service pack 1 the file transfer speed and network bandwidth improved but still lags behind windows xp).

All these problems I just mentioned earlier, I first experienced on the RC1 build of Vista. Initially I thought it’s too early to make a judgement since most drivers were still in beta stage and I also expected those problems was going to be ironed out by the time Microsoft released the Final version of Vista. I bought a copy of Vista Home Premium on day 1 of release in Australia and installed it. At that time all hardware manufacturers released the final version of their product drivers (hardware I was using). After installing everything I was really shocked. All those sluggishness and hard disk spinning issue was still evident. Then I thought may be Microsoft miscalculated the system requirements and my desktop probably grew too old. Around that time my cousin bought a brand new Core 2 Duo based Dell XPS laptop running on Vista Home Premium. This laptop had all the latest component and features. When I started to use that laptop I found all those problems I experienced before on my desktop. At that moment I got really frustrated and that very moment decided to get back to my good old Windows Xp with Service Pack 2. I thought let’s wait for Microsoft to release its first service pack then I will probably install it again. Eventually Vista Service Pack 1 was released. Also by that time hardware manufacturers updated their product drivers many times to improve their performance and compatibility. So I decided to install my copy of Vista for the 3rd time hoping everything will fine this time. Unfortunately I was disappointed again. All I found was some increase in file transfer speed and improved network bandwidth. So I went back to Windows Xp again.

After few months I did a major hardware upgrade including a dual core processor, latest powerful graphics card, faster ram, and faster hard disk. So I decided to try Vista for the last time, but once again I was disappointed. So I decided I am not going to use Windows Vista ever again. I will just wait for Windows 7 to come out will probably use it if I am happy with the RC1 Build of Windows 7. I am one of the power computer users; well at least I would like to think that way. In my house and also among friends and relatives I am either the primary decision maker when it comes to purchasing computers and electronics or the major influencer. So far I didn’t recommend anyone to use Windows Vista and they actually listened to me and didn’t even bother buying a new computer as all new computers come with Vista Pre-Installed[/size][/size]
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Lost-Benji
Posted: Thursday, April 16, 2009 12:17:47 AM
Rank: Technician

Joined: 2/2/2009
Posts: 236
Bloody hell, thats a long-winded post. Now I shall not try to offend but I feel I do need to rebut a little when there is some very obvious short-comings in your statments. Please don't take offense but it is begging to be said.
Some of the regulars in here can attest to my recent disgust in Vista with MS's lovely win-updates making a mess of the system and associated issues with Nvidia and shitty drivers however, I can definately tell you that Vista while slow for some is still vary fast for those who take the time to learn it and mold it into a workhorse.

Quote:
It has been 2 years since the release of Windows Vista to the consumers
I too have been using it since its first Beta and definately longer back than 2 years.

Quote:
You will probably find Windows Vista installed in most of the computers released since the second or third quarter of 2007
Not true, 2008 yes but XP was still dominant in 2007.

Quote:
When customers actually got their hands on Vista and started to use it for their everyday task, things turned out to be different. Under the lovely skin of Vista, some huge problems began to take shape. The first complaint that started to spread was the incompatibility of hardware. Now for this one, I don’t think Microsoft is solely responsible. It’s also hardware manufacturers’ duty to develop compatible drivers for their products. But there was another problem with Windows Vista which really halted the growth of the operating system. Windows Vista is actually an extremely slow resource hungry operating system. At first I thought, since it’s a brand new operating system with lots of new additions and new user interface, so it’s probably the old hardware that’s causing all the sluggishness
Agreed.

Quote:
But that’s not actually the case; Vista is by its nature very sluggish. In my next section of this blog I am going to explain a real life scenario that I have been experiencing for last 2 years or more
By your very own omissions to come, I wouldn't expect anything but pure slug from any of the hardware you have just described.

Quote:
That time I had a Pentium 4 based computer
Notorously well known for being a poor performer in the scheme of things. Certainly not up to the task of Vista even though claimed. You should know by now not to beleive min specs on anything. Shit, try playing Crysis on min specs, P4 with 512MB and a 7600GT... Not going to happen. Vista on anything less than a decent speed dual core with a good bus speed to back it along with 2GB RAM is going to crawl more than walk. The AMD X2 s939 and AM2's did very well with Vista due to being efficient and not hobbled by FSB.

Quote:
Around that time my cousin bought a brand new Core 2 Duo based Dell XPS laptop running on Vista Home Premium. This laptop had all the latest component and features. When I started to use that laptop I found all those problems I experienced before on my desktop
Another poor performer, The dell XPS's are sad little bastards to start with and very in-efficient sub-systems internally.


I have just compared XP Pro x64 (due to having 8GB of RAM), Vista Ultimate x64 and windows 7 x64 build 7000. All were updated with latest updates and SP's (shit loads of download there) SP2 on XP, SP1 on Vista and just updates on Win7.
XP is fast once it has taken forever to load but lacks DX10 and it's just generally old layout that does little to enspire.
Vista is FASTER than XP hands down thanks to superfetch on the load. This is accomplished with the basic tweaks I use that I shall mention shortly. It has DX10 wich suits my games well. Networking is fine and system works OK.
Win7, bloody hell, if the RTM is anything like the Beta, then kiss ya butt goodbye. It flys and is very sweet to use. Very fast interface and is what Vista should have been if MS didnt bow down to big $$$ manufacturers who forced MS to reduce Vista to boring just so they could keep selling all the slow shit they still had (me looking at Dell, HP and a few other vendors STILL selling shit that shouldnt have Vista on them at all). The downside is that drivers are still all beta and support for online anti-punk software is shit. Even Balance (PunkBuster) have made it very clear they are not even going to touch Win7 till it hits the shelves, thus no decent online games work properly, especially on 64bit. Thanks to the tools still hanging onto their 32bit crap.

My specs:
Q6600 GO stepping, Overclocked to 3.4 (425x8, 1700FSB, 1:1 RAM) or 3.6 (400x9, 1600FSB, 1:1 RAM) depending on mood I'm in.
8GB DDR-II 800 5-5-5-15
GA-X38-DS5 MainBoard
Zalman Reserator 1 v.2 Water Cooling for CPU
800GT Palit 1GB main Vid card
9600GSO Palit 1GB secondary Vid card (runs second and third screens as well as Physics)
600W Zalman HP silent PSU
2x WD 36GB Raptor's in RAID-0 for the OS and programs.
2x WD 80GB drives in RAID-0 for games, scatch area and mounting of VHD's for Virtual PC.
4x Seagate 500GB 7200.11's in RAID-5 for Video storage.
2x Seagate 500GB 7200.11's in RAID-1 for documents and files.
1x IDE DVD DL burner (they perform better than SATA optical drives)
SilverStone TJ05 case to hold it all.

Now I consider myself a "Power User" as the system is worked and it works well. I am now currently using Vista Ultimate again and is working well. The trick is that I am running SP2 RC and have tweaked the following:
Killed off UAC
Killed off page file, not needed with 8GB RAM
Killed off System restore (stops the fill-up of the drive)
Backed off indexing (still runs but in relaxed mode)
Installed both SP's straight after fresh load from stand-alone installers
ALL updates done afterwards
DEFRAG set to daily (takes less than 2 minutes to do the whole system)
Run Disk clean-up once a week and remove everything listed
Left it run for 24 hours straight to sort itself out (trust me, it helps)
Disabled the tablet input and ultimate extras
Use the latest stable drivers throughout direct from manufacturer for all hardware
Use a decent internet security program that doesnt kill the system (Kaspersky IS 2009)

This results in a very fast system that is rock solid. No XP wanted here. Win7 when it supports the games / games are supported better by vendors.



Edited by lost-benji: 16/4/2009 12:19:17 AM
Gone
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mohaymens
Posted: Thursday, April 16, 2009 7:35:40 PM
Rank: I'm new around here

Joined: 10/27/2008
Posts: 2
Dear lost-benji, I am really glad that you went through my whole post and provided a complete feedback Smile I actually agree with u in many cases. I know that all the machines I listed are poor performer compared to others but they do meet and exceeds the recommended requirements by a huge margin, I am not only talking about minimum requirements here. Also I do agree that on your system and the way you modified the settings Vista will run real fast. But majority of consumers will stick to low to mid-ranged pc and not going to go through all the tweaking you just mentioned. On those most mainstream computers Vista runs really sluggishly. But I tested Windows 7 on those same computers, it actually runs significantly faster than Vista and in many cases faster than Xp. Also Win7 is now in beta stage and all the drivers I am using either beta or old Vista drivers, still this works like a charm.
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Lost-Benji
Posted: Friday, April 17, 2009 7:12:59 AM
Rank: Technician

Joined: 2/2/2009
Posts: 236
Yes Win7 has the unique abbility to be able to use drivers from older versions, even back to win98 in some cases. It is a very nice OS to use but let me down with my games though not really it's fault if third-party shit like bloody punkbuster doesnt work.
Heck, if wasnt for that only one reason, I would be happy to run it full time. I only hope for two things to happen or more to the point, not happen; It isn't modded away from what it is now to point of being crap like vista was after going from RC to RTM & I hope they don't price it anything like vista's stupid over-pricing.

The future of OS's could be so much more if there was more compition form the likes of Apple (cough, choke, splutter) and especially Linux variants that are free basicly. When Linux gets to the point that you dont need to learn a whole new CLI protocol and EVERYTHING can be done with a mouse-click, then I would even be happy to purchse it. Certainly cant be as expensive as Vista. $400.00 for Vista Ultimate OEM is the current price, sure a long way from the thousand plus when it first come out. No wonder pirate copies emerge.
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Jake.f
Posted: Monday, April 27, 2009 7:59:47 PM
Rank: I'm new around here

Joined: 4/13/2009
Posts: 13
Location: New South Wales
I have vista ultimate and the only problems i have had is with bad hardware.
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petergaskin
Posted: Thursday, April 30, 2009 9:19:18 PM
Rank: Troubleshooter

Joined: 1/30/2009
Posts: 42
So you would be happy to run XP on minimum requirements. Wasnt that a 128 mb of ram machine?
I use a pc with 512mb of ram at work. I am only using emails, office and some very low intensive operations on this machine. The machine is a slug!
Given that XP started with minimum requirements of 128mb ram, and we now know that we need a minimum of 1gb ram suggest that you should not be looking at running Vista on such low powered machines.
Before I chose my current machine - yes a low powered Dell core duo, but 2 gb ram - and I am very happy with Vista premium. My current machine is far better than my previous machine - running XP on 256mb ram and a 40 gb hard drive and a very slow processor. Do i blame XP for the problems with my old machine - no.
Instead, I studied all the recommendations and decided that 2gb of ram and 320gb hard drive and small core duo machine would suit my requirements for 3 - 4 years.
The secret is to ensure that you select enough power in your pc to meet your current and projected needs and hope it lasts long enough before you select the next best thing.
I believe that my next machine will include a corei7 with Windows 7 64 bit system and at least 6gb ram. Also, the machine will have to be able to play commercial bluray discs.
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