The state of Vista | The Coffeehouse

kitron

With all the negativity towards Vista, why is talking so long for Microsoft to actually fix some of the issues users have with the OS? Things that need to be fixed ASAP

-slow file copy speeds (local / over network)
-reduce the number of UAC prompts
-slow boot/shutdown
- improve ZIP/UNZIP performance
- slow Java script performance in IE

Why is it so hard to fix these problems?

Bass
www.spreadfirefox.com/5years/

Why is it so hard? Because writing good software is very difficult. Windows is tens of millions of lines of code, I can imagine the difficulty involved in maintaining it.

stevo_
Human after all

One and two were somewhat fixed in sp1, althought from what I understand about the copy speeds- it was more about tweaking.. and the uac prompts generally aren't anything to do with MS, but a 3rd party software developer.

Never had slow boot, shutdown is a tad slow- but its shutdown, I hit power and walk away..

zip performance might be slow, I've never done any big zip operations.. and IE isn't Vista, its IE.. and its slow because IE blows... at the moment.. althought IE8 probably won't be a record breaker..

I'm curious as to why JavaScript popped in at the end? seems a bit random.

kitron

In reply to stevo_

#Jun 23rd, 2008 @ 4:52 PM

"I'm curious as to why JavaScript popped in at the end? seems a bit random."
I guess I was mostly focused on performance when I started the thread. I know IE is not Vista but it gets installed with it.

wisemx
Live it

In reply to stevo_

#Jun 23rd, 2008 @ 4:52 PM

This has to be machine specific.
On my Intel Dual SLI...Boot, shutdown, hibernate, all are amazingly fast.

The one and only problem I've had is with the advanced Creative sound cards.
I've had to go to a USB mic for recording on Vista.

Other than that, VS2008, SQL Server 2008, Camtasia Studio 5, all run much better than on my XP Pro SP3 box.
(Which takes at least 2 minutes longer than Vista to boot.)

BHpaddock

1 and 2 were addressed in SP1. File copy performance should be at least as fast as XP. UAC prompts were reduced in some cases where they were excessive.

intelman

I dunno, but I can't wait for Windows 7. It has to be polished goodness. I know once it is revealed Microsoft is going to tout "faster than Vista". "More Simple than Vista". "Better for _______ than Vista".

Of course it will probably come in starter home business and ultimate still. Though there is always hope, but I'm not feeling it.

CreamFilling512

In reply to BHpaddock

#Jun 23rd, 2008 @ 6:22 PM

The copying performance was always a perceptual thing, it was just flushing the I/O to disk instead of leaving tons of uncommitted data in memory.

Ray7

In reply to intelman

#Jun 23rd, 2008 @ 7:30 PM

Mmmm .... isn't that what they said about Vista compared to XP?

RoyalSchrubber
One. How many time travellers does it take to change a lightbulb?

In reply to BHpaddock

#Jun 23rd, 2008 @ 6:22 PM

what-frickin-ever. Don't know why I have to repeat myself for the n-th time (n>3) all over this forum. Perplexed

Pace
In The Mix...

You know its funny. I did have problems with Vista when it was new but ive been running it now problem now for about 8 months.

Although I agree its slightly slower than XP at certain things I have found that it doesnt gradually degrade like XP does. Vista is very easy to keep clean and running in good working order.

As soon as my new desktops arrive with the upped hardware ill be deploying vista on all machines on the network. Im really enjoying it lately.

rodgerdb

-slow file copy speeds (local / over network)

Vista SP1 went a long way in improving this. If however your still unsatisfied at least one tweak I can recommend you run at an Administrator Command Prompt:

netsh int tcp set global congestionprovider=ctcp

Reference: http://www.speedguide.net/read_articles.php?id=2574

-reduce the number of UAC prompts

Vista SP1 reduced quite a few UAC prompts as well. I believe the goal Microsoft has here is to coax developers into properly storing user data in the users personal folder rathar than all over the drive. One future tweak they could do to this is cache the prompt. For instance if I say yes allow this so and so application to write to the program files\application folder, it wouldn't prompt me repeatedly if the context remains relatively the same. Currently though I have to say the way they are going about it is the better way. Without beating some people over the head (by way of prompts), you just won't get developers to change their practice. I know this is an annoyance for the end user as applications switch over their code, but it's one of those necessary evils to get things fixed in Windows land.

-slow boot/shutdown

As far as this goes, I don't experience too much problems in this regard but perhaps the following may help you out:

http://www.peterprovost.org/archive/2008/06/20/24467.aspx

- improve ZIP/UNZIP performance

I'll have to agree on this one, it could certainly use a bit of speed up. Compared to competing archivers it's pretty darn slow.

- slow Java script performance in IE

Again, I have to agree with this one, IE needs some major attention thrown at it. Perhaps IE8 will be the salvation, only time will tell. I have hopes IE8 will deliver.

Dexter

In reply to rodgerdb

#Jun 24th, 2008 @ 1:14 AM

- improve ZIP/UNZIP performance

Nah, that won't happen. Competing archivers will cry "monopoly" as soon as it happens Smiley

. Besides I'm not sure it's worth investing too much in it because there are other compression formats than ZIP and you'll end up needing a "competing archiver" anyway.

- slow Javascript performance in IE

Now what Javascript and IE have to do with Vista? It's IE's problem, the same IE runs on XP too and it has the same performance.

axelriet

>Why is it so hard to fix these problems?

Because they don't really exists?

spivonious

Weren't most of those fixed with SP1?

kitron

In reply to axelriet

#Jun 24th, 2008 @ 2:14 AM

I am not so sure these problems don't still exist.
Check out this technet forum:
http://forums.microsoft.com/technet/showpost.aspx?postid=1358057&siteid=17&sb=0&d=1&at=7&ft=11&tf=0&pageid=43

The perception out there is that Vista is not worth it because on top of not adding much new stuff it doesn't perform better than XP on relatively modern hardware. How does Microsoft change this perception?

Microsoft should definitely focus on performance out of the box.
Has anyone seen any article praising Vista lately? You would think that in the last 18 months Microsoft/partners would've addressed most of the issues and perception would've changed but it has not.

All we have is a constant stream of Mac adds on tv bashing Vista (and some for the reasons mentioned above, negative articles on all tech sites
: CNET, Gizmodo, Engadget, Slashdot, etc. Negative adds from WSJ and the likes about Vista and adoption in the Enterprise. Articles everywhere about people downgrading to XP.

jjesse

In reply to kitron

#Jun 24th, 2008 @ 7:48 AM

You answer your question with the statement "The perception out there is that Vista...." Whose perception? Yours? Or what you have read/heard from tech blogs?
I've been runing Vista exclusively on my Dell D830 for 6 months. Boot time is faster then it is on XP, stability is great, No problems with file copy, etc.

How long have you been runing Vista to verify these problems exist?

kitron

In reply to jjesse

#Jun 24th, 2008 @ 7:54 AM

I've been running Vista before it went RTM, more than 2 years .
-I can tell you that only about 2 weeks ago I fixed the file copy performance with an os tweak.
-Zip/unzip slow as a dog i have to install third party.
-Boot speed slow as in more than a minute. somewhat fixed shutdown with a registry tweak
-UAC still bothers at times, I don't see why I need to get more than on prompt for the same application.
-I guess I shouldn't mentioned IE but they should fix that too.

Just in case you wonder, I have quad core system q6600, with 4gb ram, raptors in raid config so a decent system.

jjesse

In reply to kitron

#Jun 24th, 2008 @ 8:06 AM

Interesting that you jus fixed the file copy performance with a tweak. I havne't noticed anything in particular that slows down copy/move/etc.... Boot speed is faster for me on my Dell.... Though with SP1 did loose the "readyboot" or whatever it is called until it rebuilt up? Anyways I hate going bcak to XP it feels so outdated and cludgy to me. I miss too many things in XP that i have in Vista.

Bass
www.spreadfirefox.com/5years/

In reply to jjesse

#Jun 24th, 2008 @ 8:18 AM

I just use teracopy. It's free and it copies orders of mangnitude faster. Plus it can pause and resume copy operations.

matthews

Vista consistently boots in under 30 seconds for me (I've timed it several times over a month) from power button press to login screen. This is on a 1.8 GHz C2D laptop with 2GB of RAM; on the same system it's faster than XP ever did (except on an absolutely pristene system...).

SlackmasterK
I write my OWN blogging engines

1. Reinstall your "File and Printer Sharing". This upped my transfers from 8 to 40MBps, even faster than I got on XP.
2. Disable UAC. Unless you share your computer with neophytes or run alot of strange software, it's useless.
3. Hybrid Standby and/or ReadyBoost

This is the first I've heard of points 4 and 5.

Bas
It finds lightbulbs.

In reply to SlackmasterK

#Jun 24th, 2008 @ 12:38 PM

" Disable UAC. Unless you share your computer with neophytes or run alot of strange software, it's useless."

Right up to the point where there's an unknown exploit in your mainstream software like IE, FF or Outlook.

magicalclick

In reply to intelman

#Jun 23rd, 2008 @ 7:30 PM

-slow boot/shutdown
- improve ZIP/UNZIP performance
- slow Java script performance in IE

????????????????????
My boot is fast, so does shutdown. I do know the crappy Lenovo is taking forever to shutdown, but that's only because it is not a clean PC build like my own.

Zip needs better performance? Mine is really fast.

Slow Java Script on IE? Mine is fast also.

Not really sure what you are talking about.

K0ogle

yeah same here.. been using that handy little replacement for a qute a while now.. its just a shame it doens't get much attention.. it still lacks a few things in the way of better customization, layout and control (althogh all those points stump the default windows ones)... its got some real pesky prompt dialogs when things aren't right.. biggest one being it doesn't start copying files until space has been free'd up on the disk/network machine you're wanting to move files too.. where as the default just starts doing it straight away and then lets you know it couldn't cram in those last files Smiley

.. which is better because at least its done most of the job, while you go fix up some more space etc

... and its also not as responsive as using the default copy/paste for moving large number of small files so when you say its faster thats not entirely true, I mean its not built into windows so that must slow things a little, but i'm sure more could be done to speed it up .. but for large file copies/moves accross disks/networks its great all its kinda missing is a speed control which on some file opperations is very handy.. I find it complety retarded that a speed adjustment for copying/moving files at least across networks has never been added into the default dialog.. have you ever worked on a machine when someone has been trying to grab/add files on your pc using the crappy windows file opperations.. sometimes its just better to have files moving accross the network not at the fastest speed the sending machine hdd's can achieve. Slowing down another persons machine and what they are doing.. so speed control should be given.

but its WAY better than the default lame file/copy opperations provided by windows which are just plain noob crap thanks MS.

"-slow boot/shutdown"

whats new, OS's get bigger.. (ok they don't always get better as in the case of Vista which negatives pretty much outweigh most of its positives afaic Tongue Out

) .. perhaps a downgrade might actually be beneficial Smiley

also possible to lay some blame on hardware manufactures not stepping upto the job faster on this one.. .. give them another year or 2 to catch up unless you feel like paying ££££ for raided SDD setup that'll kick things up faster.

" improve ZIP/UNZIP performance"

time to stop being a noob! you never use the crappy built stuff windows provides when you can look for better alternatives.. its called searching *cough* winrar?