eWeek takes a look at Vista’s first service pack. “On the whole, Vista Service Pack 1, which becomes generally available in mid-March, is a fairly staid update with very little in the way of new features or cosmetic changes. SP1 consists of a rollup of Vista’s first year of security and bug fixes, new support for a handful of emerging hardware and software standards, and an update to Vista’s kernel and core systems that brings the operating system in line with Windows Server 2008, which was also recently released to manufacturing. SP1 also features a handful of performance improvements around file copy operations, which I was able to confirm during my tests in our lab.” Concerning the file copy operations, Mark Russinovich has a detailed post about that one.
So, after the recent “fixes” to Vista in SP1, I think the user-measured results in this article still make it quite clear that XP SP2 blows away Vista in file IO operations.
I love how decompression of a large zipfile using the built-in compressed folders tool is still nearly 4x slower on Vista than XP SP2…that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy about Vista.
As a Windows software developer by trade, this doesn’t make me feel good about Vista at all.
The unzip tool in Vista is abysmal. I look forward to improvements but it’s doubtful the built in tool will be worth using at any point. I recently wanted to give xxamp (lite) a try as I wanted to see how well it would work on a SD card using PortibleApps
Before throwing it on the SD card I went to extract the zip file which is around 47 megs and decompresses to about 115MBish. The built in Vista unzip tool informed me the operation would take several hours. I’m not sure how long it would have really taken had I let it do its thing but after a minute I stopped the operation. 7zip completed the task in 14 seconds.
So file i/o might not be the only issue. The application that does the unzipping seems to monumentally suck.
I find it faster to download and install WinRAR, and then zip files, than use the Vista zipper. If WinRAR can do it so quickly, Microsoft don’t really have excuses. Having to write a massive technical document on the finer details of the copy ‘engine’ just to try defer why Vista is slower in reality, does not really instill me with faith.
It’s worth noting that XP’s built-in zip utility is also horrible. For example, compare zipping 200 .jpgs with zipping a folder containing those same 200 .jpgs, you’ll find that while the latter is reasonably fast, the former is almost unusably slow. Maybe Vista is worse (I’ve not used it), but let’s not act like XP’s zip utility is the epitome of efficiency.
Now, I will repeat what I’ve speculated before (and was ripped to shreds on this site
):
Why would WinZip, WinRAR, PowerArchiver be fast on both XP and Vista while XP’s and Vista’s built-in zip utilities are not? I speculate that the answer is that Microsoft doesn’t have fast zip as a priority, and that’s for two reasons:
1. Users can always use 3rd party zip utilities.
2. If Microsoft did make their built-in zip utility as good as 3rd party utilities, then they’d be looking at antitrust suits.
What Microsoft should do is remove their zip utility from Windows altogether and instead make deals with WinZIP, WinRAR, and/or PowerArchiver to bundle dumb-downed versions of those apps, each of which would provide an option for users to upgrade to the full versions if they so choose.
Edited 2008-02-14 19:35 UTC
Of course, Microsoft could always just steal Info-ZIP code. It is under a BSD license after all, it isn’t like Microsoft would have to admit they were using open source code.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Info-ZIP
That is because WinZIP and PowerArchiver (not sure about WinRAR) use Info-ZIP’s (open source) code, didn’t you know? They just slap a GUI on it.
XP’s and Vista’s built-in zip utilities are of course, Microsoft code.
Nothing to stop Microsoft just integrating Info-ZIP code straight into Windows Explorer … it would solve all the problems in an instant … assuming of course that it isn’t Windows Explorer that is actually the problem …
???
Hmmmmm.
Or … if you want to use good software on Windows (which is always a bit ironic) to handle archiving, you could always get 7-zip.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7-Zip
That way you avoid paying any software shysters for someone else’s work.
Edited 2008-02-15 02:50 UTC
You seemed to miss the part about the antitrust suits that would occur if Microsoft made their zip utility “good”, regardless of whether it was done via BSD licensed code or not. And you, of all people, would be leading the charge in advocating such suits.
Edited 2008-02-15 03:02 UTC
I don’t think you really get this at all, do you? I don’t believe it is necessarily “antitrust” just for Microsoft to provide something … being a monopoly is not in and of itself a problem.
What is a problem is trying to use a monopoly position in one market to gain an advantage in another, or abusing a monopoly position to try to maintain a monopoly and/or eliminate competition.
In the case of archive managers, it would only be antitrust if Microsoft’s archiver format was incompatible with everyone else’s, one could use Microsoft’s archive format only on a Windows platform, and Microsoft’s archiver could not open common files from other archivers, and Microsoft (just because it was a big player) wanted every other software vendor who wrote an archive manager to pay Microsoft money, even though Microsoft were not first to market with an archive manager.
Since none of that pertains for archivers and archive formats (due largely to Info-ZIP), and there is competition in this particular market, I can see no problem at all for Microsoft to go ahead and fix their borked archiver software.
Personally, I think it would be rather amusing to see what would happen if MS started including more code provided by open source devs. Many of them would probably be flattered and continue to enhance their software; however, I think that some would find the reality of MS leveraging their hard work without compensation offensive. Which begs the original question: Is it really about “freedom” — or not? I suppose it depends on who’s enjoying the “freedom”.
Yes. 7-zip performs about 1000x faster on zip operations than the builtin Vista routines.
I agree the unzip is slow and that is probally a good thing. You can unzip files if you need to but, If you care about preformance buy a extra application dedicated to the function such as winzip or winrar another example is the defragmenter the inbox one is a stripped down version of disckeeper and if you want more features buy disckeeper pro.
This in the end is good for the industry because if windows had the best unzip utility who would buy a third party app (They would be crazy too)
When I work on a dual core PC with 2 gigs of dual channel DDR2 memory and XP still gets page tearing, I do not call it fast. Vista has a smooth UI and that is what I care about most of all, yes, file copy in vista was broken, but it got fixed and SP1 seems to speed it up.
Tearing is usually caused by a graphics card issue. Are you sure you used the same graphics card in XP and Vista, and did you have the correct drivers for both? Otherwise a subjective performance anaylsis is worthless.
yes, same system same card most up-to-date drivers.
blanking is caused by windows XP relying on the application to draw its images, vista with aero enabled handles the redraws, thus no more blanking. Tearing is also dealt with because Vista is utilizing the 3d pipeline to deal with the windows (that is where the best performance is in a graphics card exists)
Yeah. Vista trades increased memory pressure for reduced tearing. Given the price of memory these days, it looks like a worthwhile tradeoff.
GDI has had years of real-world optimization behind it. Both ATI[sic] and Nvidia drivers were really very good at accellerating 2d performance. I did get tearing in XP, but only when using the default graphics Drivers. Once the drivers were installed, I didn’t notice any blanking/tearing (or no more than in Vista – blanking still happens in some apps).
By contrast, GDI performance in Vista is, by design, worse than in XP, and some applications can seriously struggle if they do lots of GDI operations in Vista.
I’m a Vista user. I happen to like it well enough and have the hardware to run it, but it’s still not that special, imho. “Good enough” but that’s about all.
From the review, this service pack strikes me as no more than the bare minimum Microsoft could plausibly get away with. The slow file copy, even after applying the service pack, is a bad joke though fortunately most users won’t encounter this all that much. Otherwise, apart from rolled-up bugfixes and bringing the OS into line with Windows Server 2008, there is nothing here apparently. Zilch. But then if you’re a monopoly this is probably how you behave. Windows bunnies have nowhere else to turn and the Microsoft money fountain can be pumped up by simply turning off Windows XP and forcing a move to Vista whether users like it or not. Thank god for other operating systems.
The reason that SP1 wasn’t that impressive is that about 80% of it was already on peoples computers who ran windows update. The big performance boosts came in two patches almost a year ago.
The reason that SP1 wasn’t that impressive is that about 80% of it was already on peoples computers who ran windows update. The big performance boosts came in two patches almost a year ago.
True, but I don’t really agree. In the end, SP1 isn’t impressive because Microsoft chose not to make it so. If you want users to flock to you and use your products then you need to be sexy. You need to deliver the buzz, the jolt, the bolt. As did Google, as did MySpace, as did Apple with the iPod and then the iPhone, etc – the bandwagon constantly moves on. Microsoft settled for being dull monopoly businessmen so long ago they’ve probably forgotten it’s even possible to think of this let alone do it.
Of course, enterprise customers may want something that’s such a known quantity it’s almost dull because they don’t want unwelcome surprises rolling out patches to thousands of desktops. That’s fine. But there are also several hundred million home users out there. A few new wallpapers or a new Vista theme or two would have been a nice touch, for example, one might even say a human touch. And it would have cost Microsoft practically nothing.
If you want happy and motivated customers, this is the kind of thing you do. That’s why I said in my first post that Microsoft have settled for playing the monopoly game, since this is the last thing monopolies ever do. We’ve all gotten so use to it that we’ve mostly forgotten what doing things differently could be like, too.
See, now I don’t agree with that. Look at Vista itself. It is the very first version of the OS that has taken esthetics into account, ever. MS does two kind of SP releases, the big change release (like the security overhaul of XP SP2) or the more common bug fix release (like XP SP1 and SP3).
You’d think everyone has nothing better to do that sit around timing multi-gigabyte file transfers and zip/unzips with a stop watch. Most of my file copies are well under 100 MB, and the rare gigabyte plus transfer seems fast enough for me. I honestly would have no idea there was a problem if I hadn’t read about it on the Internet. I’d expect the vast majority of the rest of Vista users are in the same boat.
I imagine there might be folks whose jobs consist of nothing but executing large file copies all day long. I admit, those people’s productivity was probably severely impacted by Vista. But for the rest of us this rises to about the same level of importance as that stuck pixel in the middle of our monitor – vaguely annoying when we think about it, but having no significant impact on our day to day computing needs.
“You’d think everyone has nothing better to do that sit around timing multi-gigabyte file transfers and zip/unzips with a stop watch.”
But that’s just the point, people are having trouble with small files not multi-gig files. But you’re right, most users are likely in the same boat as you.
I don’t mean to be a troll, but this article wasn’t very good. He didn’t cover any other aspect to the service pack besides file copying, and he didn’t cover that well at all. The main issue was with copying files over a network connection, not locally. Even so, testing i/o without involving the network is pretty lame.
Yes, as someone said in other topic regarding why people are not flocking to Linux and devs need to make things work. It’s funny even the basic stuff like copying files and extracting them dont work proper in Vista and they give you a long technical reason why.
The Service pack goodness always seems to make Windows users feel better and then when it comes, it’s the usual let down, you people must love it. I’ve quit using Windows, it’s not so hard but some people are a sucker for punishment. I got sick of the endless games that came out broken, nvidia drivers being in constant beta, service packs dont make this any better and I couldn’t care less if office got 10% faster, just fix the damn basics.
… is more of a true service pack than the “This may be our last hurrah so let’s throw every OS-changing feature we can think of in there” mess that was XP SP2.
SP1 removes the ‘Search’ feature from the right-click menu. I know there’s a registry hack to return it; does anyone know what it is?
Also, when copying files from an external drive, such as a CD, USB drive or an SD card, Vista often (but not always) makes me move the items one-at-a-time. A major pain when you’re trying to copy 300 photos from an SD card. Does anyone know if SP1 fixes that?
Edited 2008-02-14 22:31 UTC
i am not sure how many people know about it, but the bulk of the slowness in file copying comes from the remote differential feature computing differences between the source and destination. Now I am no fan of Vista, and I love the bashing, but disabling this feature SIGNIFICANTLY increases copy speed to a point where the difference is minimal.
Control Panel > Programs > Turn Windows features on and off > (wait for it wait for it waitfor it > Uncheck “Remote Differential Compression”
You should see a somewhat astounding difference in transfer speeds. Hope this helps out some people.
I have not read the article. And I was not aware of this issue. But are we talking about the thing that rsync has been getting right, with huge performance *increases* rather than performance *decreases* for years and years?
Gee, I wish Microsoft would stop chasing our tail lights and just partake of the innovative, high quality software that we make available under such *very* generous licensing terms.
Go figure…
Edited 2008-02-14 23:03 UTC
sbergman27… your quote text is from an entirely different article.. heh
Oops!
[Lame Face Saving Technique]
Well, maybe Microsoft could have used that $100M to get the file copy right instead of propping up SCO with it.
[/Lame Face Saving Technique]
So there!
Sorry, but having UEFI built-in from the kernel up is a big deal to the entire industry.
We’ve been waiting on Microsoft to get with Linux and OS X on this one.
Why? Who cares about the code that in most cases is done executing within 500 ms? It was definitely not worth delaying the product further for that.
You may not care about it, but that doesn’t stop it being a big deal. Many people don’t care about democracy, this does not mean that they haven’t benefitted hugely from it.
nVidia and ATi are holding off releasing their entire catalogue of products with UEFI on-board.
http://www.uefi.org
Primer: http://www.uefi.org/home/UEFI_Primer_FINAL.pdf
Actual self-testing peripherals that are initialized and certified at startup [whether they be network cards, servers, graphics cards, embedded audio subsystems to much more] this just works at the lowest level is a big deal.
I have tested windows server 2008 enterprise on one of my machines and found some killing appz included which makes all other annoyances in server 2008 nonsence.
One Ex: Windows backup server which can backup your server in 2 modes (cloning mode and file copy mode) not only once a day but even many times a day; this feature costed me around 600 $ on windows server 2003 by buying Retrospect server edition, to backup the server reliably.
And now it is included for free in this edition. This alone might make people to move from 2003 to 2008, some might move because of the free virtualization of 2008; others for other reasons.
Now back to vista: what are the killing feature; yes yes DX10, but this made games run slower by 30% which is not forgiving for gaming freaks; yes yes UAC=more secure; but viruses are still there and vista is still highly vulnerable; File copy?! yes XP is a killer here not the opposite; One thing MS could have done to make vista appealing but they didn’t; its cores vista core; which means stripping vista of all un necessary appz and services to make it super fast, and sell it as a killing feature. Or include good backup software for vista like OSX 10.5 time machine (don’t till me windows home server, it’s a crap); how about improving MS Notepad and include Word for free or a basic office suite that includes a basic Publisher or a basic presentation software or other good software MS produces; that for sure will make people move from XP for these free extra features. Did I forget a Free Live OneCare for vista ultimate users? why it’s not included?!!
I don’t know what year MS thinks they are in; we are in the age of free software, not money for a feature like in the past!
Far be it from me to be an MS-apologist, but let’s tackle this one for a minute.
Sure, viruses still exist, but what’s your metric for claiming that Vista is still highly vulnerable? This is one thing I’ll give MS credit for, I think they’ve finally gotten the security game, or at least, they’ve improved by leaps and bounds, and I think that’s noteworthy.
It seems to me that the security bulletins I receive nowadays are more related to applications, such as QuickTime, Acrobat, Firefox, RealPlayer etc. They’re no longer a monthly-updated list of exploits in Windows, which I guess is why the blackhats have moved to lower hanging fruit.
I’m certainly not saying that Windows has achieved security nirvana, and most certainly not saying that Windows isn’t without other flaws even if MS has finally addressed the security angle after a decade of abuse, but if we’re going to criticize MS or Vista, let’s argue rational points rather than falling back into clicheed anti-MS by-the-book criticisms.
Best way to confront your opponent is to focus on their actual flaws, and not their perceived ones.
I only bring this up because as much as I would like to see linux, for instance, gain more traction, I don’t think it will happen if the community can’t address the real issues rather than falling back on tired arguments. So let’s keep it real…
OK, on the SAME machine, with XP SP2 a copy took 5 min. With Vista SP1 it took 4 min. Timed. The vista disk (identical specs to the XP disk) was actually fuller but it also had readydrive and readyboost doing their “thang” with the Intel Turbo Memory hardware (512MB for each feature).
Doesn’t look like it’s way slower to me…
It also calculated the estimated time remaining in a second (it was about 5GB of stuff). Even with the older speedup patches, it was NOT that fast.
BTW I run Vista 64-bit, since it’s the only “proper” way to run it (do some research, the engineers were forced into making the 32-bit version).
I have a box with a lot of RAM and I need a supported 64-bit OS otherwise it doesn’t work. I have to admit I felt some trepidation before going to Vista but it’s actually not that bad. Don’t have app compatibility problems. I use WinRAR and 7zip for my compressing and they’re super-fast (I mean, WHO THE HELL uses the built-in method anyway????)
Most of the slowness is perceived and has to do with the GUI, which needs VERY properly-written drivers. I ran low-level benchmarks and it’s plenty fast compared to XP.
I turn off aero since it seems that scrolling performance is slower than without aero (aero by design buffers and tries to make everything go smoothly, but I like to scroll FAST through documents and I was getting annoyed).
I went to the “basic” theme, which looks nice enough. Disabled most of the effects.
FYI, I was running XP without ANY of it’s eye candy as well, since I hated the XP look. At least the basic vista look is nicer.
What people NEVER seem to think about is just how much extra security and other stuff is running on Vista. The engineers also tried to fix some incorrect behavior (by disabling write cache for huge transfers, for instance, just like VTL vendors do). And most viruses have a VERY hard time sticking to a 64-bit Vista install
For I/O, you can always enable the “advanced” performance on all drives, enable write cache on USB drives, change the processor scheduling to background processes and enable largesystemcache through the registry (google for all that stuff or check my website). Your throughput will go up, possibly at the expense of gaming performance. You will, after all, be tuning it as a server.
If one disables EVERYTHING that separates Vista from XP (and it’s almost possible), memory utilization goes down and speed goes up in some cases – but you do give up all that stuff. Server 2008 is a good example of making Vista lighter – with the new GUI enabled it still takes way less memory than Vista, and I’m thinking of trying it for my main machine, as long as driver installs are not artificially blocked. I was running 2003 Server for the longest time on my laptop, it rocks as a workstation OS if you can get all your hardware working.
BTW, Readyboost and Superfetch are NOT enabled in 2008 by default.
Google for some of the enhancements that are in 2008 Server (and now Vista). A taster: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/vista/kernel-en.mspx
Remember, 2000 “felt” faster than XP. NT4 “felt” REALLY fast on low-end gear. 3.1 sure was snappy! DOS felt amazingly fast, that text was flying by at crazy speeds!
However, the future of GUIs is 3D, haptic interfaces, virtual reality and other advanced technologies. If you can’t adjust, then just use the old stuff, while it’s still supported.
D
Is there an endless loop in some installations of SP1?
http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/showpost.aspx?postid=2848906&si…
How quaint.
Just a word of warning for those thinking of taking the plunge with 64-bit Vista after this Service Pack 1 comes out officially next month. It looks like the Intel network card that Dell ships in its business desktops in the UK (Dell Vostro 400 model) does *not* work in 64-bit Vista, even after Service Pack 1 has been applied!
Yes, the mighty combination of Microsoft, Intel and Dell can’t properly support 64-bit Windows out-of-the-box on a business desktop that’s got a 64-bit-capable dual or quad core processor in it! 64-bit Linux (e.g. Fedora 8) works fine with the card, BTW, and if you need the 64-bit Vista network driver for the Vostro, Google for “provistax64.exe” (good luck doing that on the Vostro itself post-install ).
Edited 2008-02-17 21:39 UTC
How, exactly, is this a Microsoft problem? I can certainly buy that it’s a Dell and Intel problem, but why tar Microsoft? MS doesn’t provide the driver for that network card. Intel does — or, at least, should, so what am I missing here?
Edited 2008-02-17 23:53 UTC