My opinions on Vista SP1, 8 months later..

AWPC · 8 Feb 2008 at 13:38

Nothing wrong with Vista for me once I got 4GB Ram + a 32MB cache HD. It now runs like a rocket and is much better than XP for me in everyway. Obviously going from XP it is a bit of a shock and some things are not working as well as they should be. Give it a bit more time and it will become a firm favorite.

It needs a bit of tweaking and is very complex to get the most out of your hardware but even without SP1 I am still getting incredible HD to HD transfer speeds. Took under 3 mins to copy approx 12GB of data (lots of little files as well) from a Samsung 750GB 32MB cache to a Samsung 250GB 8MB cache.

A lot of Vista's bad rep is due to people not understanding what it is doing and why and tweaking to get the most out of their system.

The best perfromance tweaks I have discovered (after using several different HD's are as follows):

1: Get a 32Mb cache HD. Even a Raptor 150 I found was not good enough for Vista. My new Samsung is much snappier and also silent. This alone has given me the biggest performance boost of all.

2: 2GB Ram min. 4GB is better but even then it only ever uses 1.5GB max.

3: Disable or tweak Windows Defender.

4: Go into Task Scheduler and disable some of the features you do not require.

5: Disable Disk Indexing.

6: Disable & delete both the pagefile & hibernation file.

I think MS dropped the ball in that Vista straight out of the box is designed to go on either Laptops/Desktops/Media Centres and does not offer a custom install which would say remove features which may not be required if you had 3 choices for hardware types.

james.miller · 8 Feb 2008 at 13:38

Fire Wizard said:
Hello barnettgs, please link me to a half decent article that has reasonable arguments saying that Windows Vista is pants? Once again, what is it that you don't like about Windows Vista and/or what do you think makes it such a bad Operating System?

i dont like the fact that my transfer speeds are atrocious, especially when people are telling me there's nothing wrong with vista

Cosimo · 8 Feb 2008 at 13:39

Sorted in SP1.....

badbob · 8 Feb 2008 at 13:41

james.miller said:
i dont like the fact that my transfer speeds are atrocious, especially when people are telling me there's nothing wrong with vista

Yeah it's like talking to religious zealots. I've done the tweaks, updates, disable defender, latest drivers, disable remote differenterial...still dog slow.

I had to copy files from HD to HD, in Vista it was driving me nuts- so just booted with Ubuntu Live CD and the same copying process was twice as quick.

Sorted in SP1.....

Which isn't out yet? Just as a Beta..and how long has Vista been out?

HEADRAT · 8 Feb 2008 at 13:49

simulatorman said:
Sorted in SP1.....

Are we talking disk to disk or over a network, in my experience this isn't fixed

Dolph · 8 Feb 2008 at 13:50

barnettgs said:
Inquirer is just reporting on the SP1 test results from PC World - http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,142233/article.html

You're in the minority who think Vista is good, when it isn't.

Trying not to rise too much to your poor attempt at trolling, and discounting people who think that Vista is bad because it doesn't let you do the stupid things that XP did but shouldn't, what's the problem with Vista?

chesterstu · 8 Feb 2008 at 13:54

badbob said:
Which isn't out yet? Just as a Beta..and how long has Vista been out?

MS are being cautious to stop people rush installing and breaking stuff. If that happened you would be on here complaining they rushed it out without fulling testing it or making sure driver wouldn't cause issues. It's not a beta anymore it's RTM'ed and it's with hardware vendors and partners to make sure it works with there products.

I missed the day when they said how long an OS should be out before it's updated. If you look at XP it's been out 7 years and has had 2 service packs that must be well overdue.

Cosimo · 8 Feb 2008 at 13:55

HEADRAT said:
Are we talking disk to disk or over a network, in my experience this isn't fixed

My HD to HD and over network to NAS have been sorted.

james.miller · 8 Feb 2008 at 13:56

simulatorman said:
My HD to HD and over network to NAS have been sorted.

thats nice to hear.

barnettgs · 8 Feb 2008 at 13:57

james.miller said:
i dont like the fact that my transfer speeds are atrocious, especially when people are telling me there's nothing wrong with vista

Exactly why I can't be bothered to explain every time I say Vista is rubbish.

Dolph, don't need to take what I've said personally. It's not you, it's the Vista that sucks!

Dolph · 8 Feb 2008 at 13:57

badbob said:
Yeah it's like talking to religious zealots. I've done the tweaks, updates, disable defender, latest drivers, disable remote differenterial...still dog slow.

I had to copy files from HD to HD, in Vista it was driving me nuts- so just booted with Ubuntu Live CD and the same copying process was twice as quick.

I'm not sure the zealotry is on the pro-vista side, they tend to back up their arguments far more. You complain about file transfer speeds and imply it effects everyone, it does not. I have no problem with transfer speeds in vista apart from across the network, which is addressed in SP1.

How many bug fixes did XP SP1 fix and how many were far more major than those in vista?

Which isn't out yet? Just as a Beta..and how long has Vista been out?

Vista was launched on Jan 30th 2007. How many people here were using XP a year after launch, and how many were naysaying it? How many were complaining of issues before XP SP1, and how many were more of a problem than those with vista?

NathanE · 8 Feb 2008 at 13:58

barnettgs said:
Thats like saying BMW and Mercedes are rubbish!

No it's not? BMW and Mercs are everywhere. They are practically the "Windows" of cars.

Rackerz · 8 Feb 2008 at 13:58

I don't understand Vista haters, Vista isn't bad at all and comparing it with XP is silly, why? XP's had a fair good life span and Vista has only just had it's first birthday. You cannot tell me that XP, when first released was the best thing ever because it had as many problems as Vista does.

HEADRAT · 8 Feb 2008 at 13:59

Dolph said:
apart from across the network, which is addressed in SP1.

I'm not sure that it the case tbh

Dolph · 8 Feb 2008 at 14:00

barnettgs said:
Exactly why I can't be bothered to explain every time I say Vista is rubbish.

Dolph, don't need to take what I've said personally. It's not you, it's the Vista that sucks!

Without any explaintion, it's impossible to take your comments seriously. This is further compounded by most of those speaking out with similar views to yourself giving views that don't stand up to evidence or show fundamental misunderstandings in the way things work.

Without an explaination, it's simply going to be assumed that you are in with the above group...

Fire Wizard · 8 Feb 2008 at 14:00

barnettgs said:
Exactly why I can't be bothered to explain every time I say Vista is rubbish.

Hello barnettgs, because you are getting slow transfer speeds, which only seem to be effecting some people anyway, that makes the entire Operating System rubbish?

Dolph · 8 Feb 2008 at 14:01

HEADRAT said:
I'm not sure that it the case tbh

Copy from SP1 machines to SP1 machines, or from machines using older operating systems? If the latter, why blame vista?

SexyGreyFox · 8 Feb 2008 at 14:02

barnettgs said:
Inquirer is just reporting on the SP1 test results from PC World - http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,142233/article.html

You're in the minority who think Vista is good, when it isn't.

What a laugh.
I've just been dealing with 3 different people who wanted machines from the Purple Shirts and they all came round with printouts of machines that had 512 meg of RAM :eek:

You have to pay £499 before you get your first Vista machine with 2 gig in it.
Lets all take our memory out down to 512 and see what results we get.

Now go do your homework.

HEADRAT · 8 Feb 2008 at 14:03

Dolph said:
Copy from SP1 machines to SP1 machines, or from machines using older operating systems? If the latter, why blame vista?

Well posted from the SP1 but I think it's also relervant to this thread:-

1 x WHS
1 x Vista Ultimate (No SP1)
1 x Vista Ultimate (SP1)

The SP1 build is:-

6001.longhorn_rtm.080118-1840

Initiated from Vista

Drag-n-drop of a file from Vista Ultimate (No SP1) to WHS

Drag-n-drop of a file from Vista Ultimate (No SP1) to Vista Ultimate (With SP1)

Drag-n-drop of a file from WHS to Vista Ultimate (With SP1)

Drag-n-drop of a file from WHS to Vista Ultimate (No SP1)

Initiated from WHS

Drag-n-drop of a file from WHS tp Vista Ultimate (No SP1)

Drag-n-drop of a file from WHS to Vista Ultimate (With SP1)

I'm not sure we can claim the slow copy is fixed if it only works from Vista SP1 to Vista SP1 machines!

Apart from this one issue for me Vista is fine

Dolph · 8 Feb 2008 at 14:03

Rackerz said:
I don't understand Vista haters, Vista isn't bad at all and comparing it with XP is silly, why? XP's had a fair good life span and Vista has only just had it's first birthday. You cannot tell me that XP, when first released was the best thing ever because it had as many problems as Vista does.

When XP was released, it took at least 2 years for the bitching and moaning (in some cases from the same long term posters). The amount of bitching about compatibility (XP was far worse than vista in this regard), cartoony interface and too much handholding was nuts at the time, as were complaints about performance and so on, and so on.