Vista Review

I’m wondering how many people out there (on average) have updated their Vista laptops and desktops to SP1 not that it’s been available quite awhile. I have to say – I haven’t updated my laptop yet at all, especially since I read that (despite the initial hype) machines aren’t running faster at all post-upgrade, they’re (mostly) in fact running slower!

This guy at TechIMO reports his system running squirrelly after the upgrade, so he backed it out with system restore.

Then again – it’s a double edged sword, since if I don’t upgrade in the near future my machine might be vulnerable to new exploits, the one recently announced that renders Windows Vista security useless.

It looks like I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t, and I may have to make a choice this year. Have you upgraded your Vista yet? What have you experienced?

Well, to everyone that was waiting for SP1 to come out – guess what, the “official release” that was initially posted on the web was full of errors that made machines reboot and reboot and reboot and reboot! And now they’re saying that it’s 40% slower than XP!

In other Vista news this week, turns out that almost no one is buying Vista Ultimate and 75% of all Vista shipments are Vista Home Premium. Redmond is sniffing out pirates in SP1, but for some reason only seems to be nagging them to death.

There is hope as Geekywood shows you how to speed up your Vista, and if that weren’t enough – I’ll cap it off with “How to install Vista in 2 minutes” (which is hilarious – lol)!

The official release of Vista SP1 can’t be far off, because anyone can register and download the official SP1 release from Microsoft’s OEM site. There are so many improvements and to exising Vista features that I just can’t wait for this thing. I’m about to download that OEM version and install it and be done because it’s so damn slow when transfering files, even emptying the recycle bin is a pain. I have the display driver bug too, and anytime I login I have to wait 5 seconds for he screen to quit flickering before I can work. For the most part Windows Vista has been pretty “stable”, but as I’ve written before – for a system with 2GB of RAM you’d think it’d be a hell of a lot less sluggish than it is. I hope when I intstall SP1 it will be – you’ll be the first to read about my experiences with SP1 here.

ZDNet gives SP1 “7 out of 10″.

What are they highlighting in SP1?

- new windows Firewall
- improved Windows update
- preventive data loss when ejecting removable media
- improved sleep and wake-up times
- improved Readyboost
- smart card enhancements
- read/writing files is faster

Their advice? Wait until SP1 is offered through Windows “Automatic Updates” service. I think I might just do that.

It looks like Microsoft Vista Service Pack 1 isn’t much better at stopping pirates than the original release. Wired confirms that there are still several exploits available that bypass Vista activation that aren’t that complicated at all.

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 or SP1 is now available to the general public (Release Candidate 1 or RC1), and Microsoft has prepared a 17 page document describing the changes that Vista SP1 will include. Looks like one of the biggest bug fixed we can look forward to is support for “exFAT” which will greatly speed up file transfers to flash drives (much needed!). These tidbits were courtesy Internet News. Meanwhile, many people may decide to remain on Windows XP – because Service Pack 3 or SP3 for XP is coming…and the exo-blog posted benchmark results that show Windows XP3 update gaining 10% performance gain over Windows Vista and Vista SP1.

I’ve been very surprised that the “performance improvements” listed in that 17 page MS RC1 document don’t seem to be posted in any of the articles I read announcing Vista SP1 RC1 at all. Is it Microsoft propaganda – or are these numbers real? I can only hope that one of you installing RC1 will comment back and let us all know. Here are the ones that intrigued me:

• Improves the speed of adding and extracting files to and from a compressed (zipped) folder
• Significantly improves the speed of moving a directory with many files underneath
• 25% faster when copying files locally on the same disk on the same machine
• 45% faster when copying files from a remote non-Windows Vista system to a SP1 system
• 50% faster when copying files from a remote SP1 system to a local SP1 system
• Improves the time to read large images by approximately 50%
• Removes the delay that sometimes occurs when a user unlocks their PC
• Improves overall media performance by reducing many glitches

Ready to download and install Windows Vista Release Candidate 1? Here’s you go…

Vista SP1 RC1 links you need

Offical MS Doc: Notable changes in Vista SP1 RC1
Instructions to install Vista SP1
Microsoft Official download link to Vista SP1

Oh, and for your “Vista Sucks” fix of the day, just read The Vista is not so Grand. My favorite quote from that article is:

As innovative as Apple is and as free as open source is, Microsoft still commands about 90 percent plus of the desktop computer market. The question that analysts, commentators and our own software pioneer Mark Shuttleworth keep asking is: for how long?

If you just love Windows Vista so far – I guess you should go and read Windows Vista: Official Magazine.

Well, according to this PC World article, once you get Windows Vista Service Pack 1 or SP1 – your PC will be just as slow as the original version of Vista. That kinda sucks, like I wrote in other posts here on Vista Review – this OS was touted as being “snappy, responsive, and fast”, and it’s been slow, buggy, and sluggish. I think we were all expecting to get some kind of performance boost with SP1 – but it doesn’t really look like that’s going to happen.

Microsoft has announced it will disengage the kill switch. You remember the kill switch don’t you? When you have a Windows Vista system you have to validate you have a legal copy with Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA). If you don’t or WGA fails – after a certain period of time Windows Vista activates it’s “Kill Switch” and turns off nearly everything except very limited browsing (probably only to activate Windows). Is that good? Yes, I suppose that it is. Because we all know that Windows (and Vista) can and will mistakenly identify you (a person with a legal license to use Windows) as a criminal at some point. Get a new hard drive? You’re a pirate. Have to reformat and reinstall and activate Windows more than 4 times? You’re a pirate. Like the article I linked to reads – disabling the kill switch is a good start, but they have a long ways to go before you don’t feel like a criminal every time you need to reinstall Windows.

Do you live in or near the Microsoft campus in Mountain View California? If so, take advantage of the Vista SP1 Deployment Team’s “Install Fair” December 8th and 9th, 2007. Take your desktop or laptop (registration in advance required) and they’ll upgrade (trial and error at your expense) your system to “BETA” Vista Service Pack 1. You get snacks and beverages (while they fry your PC) – and just to keep the complainers at bay – you’ll get a free copy of MS Office 2007 just for playing nicey-nice!