Vista SP1 doesn't significantly boost performance, slows down certain tasks
By Nilay Patel 
posted Feb 13th 2008 6:06PM
posted Feb 13th 2008 6:06PM
We heard a lot of different performance claims about Vista SP1 in past few months, and now that it's finally (sort of) here, it's time to bust out the stopwatches and see what's what. According to CNET, early tests of SP1 indicate that while there are some performance enhancements to be had, they're mostly driver related -- so if you've been updating all along, you won't see much of an improvement. What's worse, certain tasks like copying files to USB 2.0 hard drives have gotten around 50 percent slower, a speed hit that overshadows the other filesystem improvements in SP1. All in all, though, it looks like SP1 is a worthwhile update -- just don't expect anything to get noticeably faster.
The only problem I have had with Vista since my hardware OEM's got their shite together is the painfully slow file copying happening when I either delete large batches of files or a handful of very large files. That and copying large files from one directory to another.
Also; Note to Microsoft: I don't need you to compute the time it is going to take for you to send my shortcuts to the recycle bin, please remove this "feature."
Oh right, what I meant to say in my first post: as long as they fix those little niggles, I will be completely happy with Vista.
SP1 does stop the whole 'calculating time remaining' issue (at least that is true on my system.
xcopy is still there...
Yeah, see the whole reason for me to use Windows as an OS is the GUI, and if I have to use the command line it becomes too much of a hassle. If I wanted to use textual commands for my OS I would have kept that Linux partition.
In order to significantly speed up file-transfer speeds, it is very helpful to turn off the "Remote Differential Compression" feature in Windows Vista.
To do this, go to Control Panel and open the "Turn Windows Features On or Off" appelet. It will take a moment to populate a list of features. Find the "Remote Differential Compression" feature, and clear the check-box next to it.
This makes a significant difference in file-transfer time, as it bypasses the protocol that calcuates remaining time. Hope it helps!
Hey! Thanks slotsky! That did help! [/manhug]
@hresult: "xcopy is still there..."
But xcopy doesn't use the same file routines that the GUI does, (at least in XP) and it ends up being slower. Try copying a directory from one point to another on the same system with the GUI and then again with "xcopy /e". I think you'll find that the GUI is faster in either OS (given that the diff compression is off in Vista)
us freaking tera copy. it helps vista a LOT. It moved my entire adobe collection file to a different laptop(using home network hard drive storage) in 10 minutes-3 gigabytes.
From what I've heard file copying was significantly improved. I also have the problem where sometimes it takes 3 years to copy a large amount of files from 1 place to the other. Drives me mad when it wants to take 3 years to copy, say, 1 gig from 1 directory to another directory on the same disk.
My understanding was that it wasn't the calculation that was slowing things down, it was the thumbnails. I turned of thumbnails to test this and everything copied instantly (where it should have been instant before) and really quickly when it was from 1 physical place to another. Only problem with leaving thumbnails off was that there were no thumbnails anywhere. Not even when you click a file and look in the preview pane in explorer. So I ended up turning them back on.
Slotsky, I think I love you. I sure hope Microsoft is aware that this is the feature which is the bane of almost all Vista users' otherwise perfect user experience. I've been using Vista for months now, and although I've had to manually register a lot of VB6 runtime libraries to run my older applications again, I have next to no complaints with Vista. It's stable, applications never seem to crash (they didn't either on XP, though) and it's a fairly smooth user experience. Bit annoyed at the driver incompatibility with older NT platforms, however do realise that in the long run, it is beneficial for users, even if they don't appreciate it right now...
Anyone got a fix for crap vista search? cant find all my files and slow.
My question is, how many Vista users experiencing problems with Vista are UPGRADING from XP on their older computer... and how many users of Vista actually bought a Laptop or desktop pre-loaded with Vista and are having many problems with it.
I've used Vista on 3 seperate laptops, brand New with Core 2 Duo CPU's and more than 2 GB of RAM and I haven't had a single problem with it with the exception that it keeps close track of things to the point of annoyance. But its pretty secure thus far.
I have been wondering that for a while(however I would add installing a version from microsoft new). Most of the problems I have noticed, me personally when I get a new computer, is all the crap that manufacturers put on a computer. I have not personally experienced upgrading from xp(seriously, who in their right minds upgrades an operating system) because I have some brains but I would expect some issues. However running a freshly installed from a disk from microsoft I have no problems except for slow transfers. But I just minimize it and do other stuff.
@Jon "seriously, who in their right minds upgrades an operating system" I think the better question would be. Who in the hell downgrades their operating system?
Vista SUCKS, I have 3 units , 2 laptops new and one desktop that needed upgrade, major crash on all of them due to 'updates' one laptop is still in shop for 'repairs' My sister bought one in Nov had to return it 3 times, I am now starting to look at MAC's
Actually George, if you're so unable to get Windows to work properly then I would suggest a different OS
Paper and a pencil. Maybe a calculator, depending on how many fingers you have.
George a troll. end.
no problems whatsoever on my end. The programs I used on XP work just fine on Vista. Truthfully, when Vista came out I upgraded and I was not impressed but over time new drivers came out and things steadily sped up...to the point im at now. Im happy with Vista. Good job Microsoft.
"certain tasks like copying files to USB 2.0 hard drives have gotten around 50 percent slower"
Well, it takes an infinite amount of seconds to copy files now so...
two infinities, and beyond!
I can hear the fanboys marching to war now.
The calm before the battle.
Yea because my Mac has Leopard and it's ( area that fanboys fill )
Dude, WTF?
You know, they're doing wonderful things at mental institutions these days, Jew Balls.
Dude, GTFO.
Raaaawr! Winduhs sucks, diz slow n bloated!
Raaaawr! OSX is for trend hoars(or whores if you must)!
I am interested to see for myself the results of the SP1. Whatever thought, I'll let the fanboys go at it in this thread :P
Let's just hope SP3 for XP will beef up my xp home edition computer, as well as many other XP users.
I wouldn't upgrade to SP3. To pressure people to buy Vista, I bet SP3 will slow down XP, make it use more memory, make programs and drivers incompatible, make copying files to USB 2.0 drives 50% slower, add DRM, and pressure you to go spend more money on newer hardware.
Hey....wait a second....
Last I heard it improves the overall speed by about 10%.
XP SP3 is great I have it running right now and its wonderful. Nice and fast! I took Vista off this Latitude d820 C2D 2.2 2GB ram that was taking 4+ minutes to boot. Now I boot in just under a minute, nice thanks XP my good old friend.
@Meat!
I hear it also causes a robot arm to pop out of the optical drive and snatch your tinfoil hat.
Its true!
@BigD145
XP SP3 will not improve speed by 10%. It won't improve much speed at all. Almost everyone who has beta tested SP3 will tell you that there is virtually no difference in performance from SP2 -> SP3.
That rumor was started by Devil Mountain Software, and used negative Vista press as free advertisement for their product (OfficeBench). It actually worked very well for them.
@Fernando
If any OS is taking 4+ minutes to boot, you messed something up pal.
SP3 isn't out for XP yet...
SP3 isn't out for XP yet...
All i was really looking for was a faster start-up and return from sleep. Bonus if it didnt eat ram like sally struthers at a sara lee factory.
Was that REALLY too much to ask?
Ok, a lot of that eating ram is due to superfetch. Its preloading your common programs for quick load times. What's the point of having ram if you aren't going to use it?
I've got to question Cnet here, because my usb harddrive certainly doesn't take 50% longer to copy, in fact if anything its faster, but don't take my word for download it and try for yourselves.
What's the point of selling rigs with 4 gig pre-installed when it can't use it?
Yes, I'm looking at you (insert any PC manufacturer here).
insertAlias is right. A large portion of ram taken by Vista is for prefetching. Vista is smart about memory management and will release memory for other applications as needed.
Faster return from sleep? I have a laptop with 512mb of RAM and it returns from sleep almost instantly. Sounds like a driver problem on your end.
@L.Rawlins
"What's the point of selling rigs with 4 gig pre-installed when it can't use it?"
You have to get the 64-bit (x64) version of Vista to use over 3GB. 32-bit (x86) can only handle a max of that.
idk.. my sleep time has decreaed w/ sp1 on my thinkpad, works hell of alot better.
Well, I've got Vista on a Laptop and my main desktop and both are woefully slow at network read/write and USB read/write.
Well, occasionally I get decent USB speeds, but more often than not is kb/s not mb/s.
Gigabit LAN speeds are also more often than not around 8-9mb/s when they should really be double that.
SP1 did help LAN speeds a bit, but they're still terrible. Mind you XP wasn't brilliant on this either, but at least you didn't have to wait 2 hours before it started to delete or copy stuff.
I have been a big supporter of Vista since it first came out, However with SP1 my network transfer speeds have been pretty much cut in half I was getting about 5MB/second pre SP1 and now i get 2-2.5MB/second. This could be the straw that makes me downgrade to XP, I hate to say it but slow transfer speeds are a killer for me I really had high hopes SP1. Oh and before the fanbois start claiming that it has to be my network causing the problems just know I am a Cisco Certified network engineer running all cisco equipment in my house so NO its not my network, its Vista.
It has to be your network causing all the problems
{giggle}
hey just becuase you're a Cisco Certified network engineer doesn't mean it's vista it could be that you're bad at your job.
jk
Thats odd, my transfers between my Gigabit (to a DIR-655) connected desktop and another desktop in another room with Wireless N adapter reach up to 7.6MBytesps.
Im not even joking either. Im transferring an MK...i mean a media file right now from the other desktop to mine.
BTW: Both on SP1. One is Ultimate, one is Business (thanks Univ. for the free software).
I had something like that with WinXP once.. but that appeared instantly...
I had (still have) a Linksys router.I don't know exactly what caused it, but I updated the firmware, uninstall stupid Firewall software. Clean my connectors, ensured that all the plugs are well placed (I had remake the plug at the end for some cables), and that totally fixed my issue. In fact, I saw a greater network speed.
Tried turning off IPv6? It's said to be causing probs...
I downloaded a version of SP1 via a torrent site. I gotta say im very impressed. Took about a day for my system to fully settle itself, but i definately notice an overall improvement in my laptop and desktops response time. Applications launch faster, boots and shutsdown a lil faster, and hibernate and sleep are actually useful on my laptop now- it quickly recovers and I am able to use it without every program lagging after hibernating/sleeping. Transfer speeds over wifi improved, but not by a whole lot. Before I was getting 300-500KB a second transfers (i have a crappy wireless router), now it averages around 1.6-1.9MB a second. Overall, im extremely impressed and it's well worth the wait. just my 2 pennys on this.
Which RC have Cnet been using?
More to the point, how much crack have they been smoking?
Anyone who claims they can't see a tangible difference with SP1 is a liar!
Wow...that isn't what I heard. In fact, one of the people at ZDNet installed it - and tested in a variety of tests and found only one area in which it was slower. Check it out here: http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1299&tag=nl.e539 Some of the improvements were 40, 50 and even 60% better. The only one it showed any slowdown was in add files to a compressed folder and it was 3.4% slower - so it took a total of 2 seconds longer according to the test.
I'm sure the engadget crew saw that one but they'd rather post this one. Remember proapple + antimicrosoft = massive hits.
It really makes me laugh that one editorial makes one assertion, while another makes a more controversial assertion, and which one gets mentioned on Engadget? When did they become Fox News?
And what really bothers me is that people seem to trust it like it was carved on stone tablets, and accept no other truth. I personally haven't gotten a speed boost from SP1, but i sure as hell haven't experienced any of the issues CNET has. Vista is still as good as the day Nvidia finally finished its drivers for it (and Hauppauge finally got a driver that works with V64 and 4 gigs of ram; yea, apparently they couldnt figure that out until recently).
Yes, typical engadget smear campaign. I am suprised Ryan Block didn't snatch this post. Maybe everyone takes turns with the MS bashing.
Well, if it takes "4 days..." to copy a 10 MB file I'm going to be really jazzed for it to be 6 days with SP1. I have Vista on a couple machines at home but still HEART XP.
Ah, that's all good and well, but Service Packs serve important roles not mentioned here:
1) they keep the masses 'safe' in their safety psychological cocoons
2) they bring perceived performance benefits
3) they help people feel great and updated (and fresh, and, again, safe)
4) they give people good feelings they can only get when getting 'freebies'
5) the above translates to increased human productivity (studies show)
6) Service Packs amuse geeks for a while, who will be measuring & reporting
7) they keep Vista in the headlines eveywhere, increasing knowledge and sales of the new brilliant, lovable, lean gotta-have-it Windows
8) now all the people that haven't got it yet can move to it, 'cause many people say wait for SP1 before upgrading. Sales-o-rama!
Look for my new book: "Microsoft Service Packs: Their true purpose", at all good bookstores.
that must be it i just happen to know nothing about networking yet have my CCIE that must be it, cause its super easy to get Cisco certifications, you just go on beliving that.
It was a joke sir, calm yourself. And believe it or not, it's not THAT hard to get Cisco Certed; it was offered as a two semester ancillary course at my high school and any half decent community college can get you there in 9 months.
I'm not saying you didn't work hard, but maybe you should be a little less defensive about just how hard it is to get certified?
I belive you are talking about CCNA not CCIE sir CCNA is pretty easy to get CCIE is about 10-15 years of experience on top of your high school program dont kid yourself. If your high school is offering CCIE training programs I think I need to go back to High School, most colleges dont even off CCIE.
CCNA = Cisco Certified Network Associate,
CCNP = Cisco Certified Network Proffesional,
CCIE = Cisco Certified Internetworking Expert.
Just google around and see what to expect from the exam.
Even though Vista had a bad start, I was hoping more improvements would come through these service packs. I remember reading about XP's bad start, so I gave Vista a chance. But now I'm losing hope for Vista after this service pack...Microsoft can't seem to get anything right and it's really sad.
Yea, everything they do is a failure. I guess its good that they sell drugs so they can achieve revenues of 16.37 Billion dollars in a quarter, since they cant do anything right, according to you.
If USB file transfers are slower, than I will PASS!
I have 2tb of external USB storage on my laptop, so that would be a HUGE issue with me..
However I will wait the usual 2-4 weeks after it is released to the public. I want to see what the masses really think, and to see what preformance boosts/hits they see.
I usually try not to listen, until the end product is OFFICIALLY out.
Usually those style of remarks end up wrong.
Wow... you've got to be kidding me.
Isn't it a tad premature to be passing judgment on SP1? I thought it wasn't technically released yet.
I've installed it and it DOES feel snappier, particularly when using windows explorer and windows+tab
I wouldn't personally upgrade an older XP machine to Vista. I have a 4 year-old laptop running XP, and I'm leaving it that way. I also have a new laptop running Vista, and it runs great. No problems, crashes, or conflicts. My drivers are all up to date and fully functional, even for networked office copiers and printers.
I would hope you would leave a 4-year old laptop on XP. Vista would probably kill it dead. Yes, Vista has high system requirements. It wasn't meant to run on old systems. On just about any new system it runs fine, assuming you keep it maintained properly.
And what about all those new features? A service pack was meant to be like the upgrade from tiger to leopard so where are those tons of new features MS gives for free with every new service pack? And where is the boost in speed?
I couldn't resist :-)
Yes you could, but you like to incite flame wars so you chose not to.
Wasn't the recent update to Leopard chaulk full of security, performance, and bug fixes?
Not that i can recall. Leopard is not an MS product you know?!
No, there were no bug fixes at all. Except all these bug fixes:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=307109
"The update is chock full of improvements and even has release notes with details. Among the highlights are:
AirPort - improves connection reliability and stability
Mail - numerous bug fixes and better handling of SMTP servers
Safari - patches a security flaw that affected only Leopard’s version of Safari 3
Third Party Apps - Improves general stability when running third-party applications." --Wired
"Adobe’s John Nack, Senior Product Manager for Photoshop, reports that 10.5.2 fixes a bug where typing values into the options bar in Photoshop would cause problems and a crashing bug involving the way other applications handle “complex XMP metadata, such as Lightroom develop snapshots,” has also been fixed."
I guess improving stability and fixing numerous bugs in your applications arnt bug fixes at all. So i guess Microsoft hasnt had a bug in all these years mentioned in these Service Packs. How would have thought?
I made my Vista run SO MUCH FASTER!!!!!! Everything is faster- here's how I did it.
1 - Uninstall Vista
2 - Install Linux
Yeah but you didn't make Vista run any faster. You liar!
Why do people always say that they are uninstalling an OS.. isn't it more like smashing all traces of it through reformatting?
"tasks like copying files to USB 2.0 hard drives have gotten around 50 percent slower"
hmm, It's not like we use these functions everyday..
I use it every day, because I keep a lot of my important data on my external drive for if I have to reformat.
Only someone who is a fanboy would blow off such a huge problem.
/insert sarcasm
(actually I bat for the other team ie/Apple), but am sick of people labelling everyone a 'fanboy'. In this post I (on purpose) decided to not be platform specific so she what response i'd get, & still it happens..
http://www.blogsmith.com/profile/591361/page/8/
You dare call someone a fanboy miles?
Take a look at your posting history. I was gonna use a specific example, but I think displaying your whole history is even better.
Don't know about file transfer speeds (my external mobile drive seems to be about the same), but I do know that it improved my battery life 20-30%. That's a start.
File copying is so overrated anyways. Maybe run XP in a VM session for when you want to copy a file?
Are you serious?
Sorry, didn't have a sarcasm smilie handy...
Awesome, can't wait to download this, then sell the computer.
Can Vista do anything right?
Vista is released, 75% of your hardware isn't support, only a few applications work, and it uses up 2GB of RAM constantly out of your 4GB
Vista SP1 comes out, slows it down even more, and uses up even more resources.
Good job Microsoft, you are digging your own grave.
100% of my hardware is supported.
I have yet to come across an application that Vista won't run, either natively or in compatibility.
Out of the 4gigs of RAM I have here, 1.2gigs is being used -- a large chunk of it by my own currently running apps rather than the OS (yes, Aero is turned on and cranked all the way up).
This is a dual-core Acer 4520, stock but for the extra 2gigs of RAM I put in it.
It seems you are talking about OSX. That's the OS where only a few apps work.
Maybe it's time to retire the 16bit apps then. Microsoft rewrote major parts of the operating system to make them more secure and stable. I've been using SP1 and it seems polished and yes I can notice an increase in speed. If you understood how superfetch works it loads commonly used application in unallocated memory.
Vista can hardly run on 2 year old hardware, while Leopard can run on hardware from the G3 era.
I love how people make this comparison. Apple only has to worry about very few hardware platforms so they can properly optimize their code. Hence why OSX is really snappy. While MS needs to code for the billion of different configuration.
BTW, I run Vista and have a Mac so I am not a fanboi. Just a dude that swings both ways ... wait
Then why is Linux so snappy?
It has to support more hardware than even Windows.
I bet if Windows went Unix based, a ton of the problems people complain about would vanish.
Linux has more hardware support than windows? Not from my experience.
You can get Leopard? on a G3 iMac? I'm posting this on an iMac G3/600 Special Edition, and I can only get Tiger to run. I haven't tried Leopard, but I don't remember it meeting all of the requirements when I last checked it out. Tiger runs much better than I expected it to though. How'd you get Leopard to run?
I thought Leopard was supposed to be able to run on G3s.
Well then, either way Leopard can still run on G4s, which are at least 10 years old.
I'd like to see Vista run on 10 year old PC.
I can't say I've tested particular functions like USB read/writes, but I did run PCMark Vantage on Vista & Vista SP1 with a UMPC. Found nearly a 10% increase in the benchmark score: http://jkontherun.blogs.com/jkontherun/2008/01/vista-sp1-perfo.html
I tried Vista on my iMac. It was decent, but then I installed the release candidate of SP1. Whatever they did, the time it took for my computer to come back awake increased 10 fold. I didn't notice any speed boosts either. I have since gone back to XP because it uses much less HD space and lets me do the same stuff.
It really could be that you are suffering from one of the reasons Vista SP1 was delayed, and that is driver conflict with certain devices with SP1 installed.
Did apple issue new drivers for your hardware related to SP1 yet?
I would probably wait until its actually released to the public before passing conclusive judgment.