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Optimise Windows Vista?

Daz

Daz

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/help/83EC0FFE-EE04-4D53-8B87-25D1F05C954E1033.mspx

Haha. WTF?

A few choice ones.
  • Run fewer programs at the same time
    You what? Are you really suggesting I change the way I use a computer?!?
  • Turn off visual effects
    And that, uh, leaves me with what in Vista exactly? :p
  • Restart regularly
    PMSL. Yea.. "We can't manage memory properly"
  • Add more memory
    Uh, yea.. just throw more resources at it - that'll do it ;)
  • Defragment your hard drive
    "We can't be arsed to develop a none-fragmenting file system"
And finally:
  • Don’t settle for slow
Haha, indeed.. don't settle for slow.. install XP :rasp:

I've never seen such nonsense.. ever.
 
I'm curious if SP1 helps much. We have the RC at work but I am going to wait for the official one before I bugger up my home PC.
 
AndyRS said:
I'm curious if SP1 helps much. We have the RC at work but I am going to wait for the official one before I bugger up my home PC.
Click to expand...

In terms of performance, SP1 probably helped a little bit.. but not loads.
Maybe the Beta stuff had debugging turned on, which didn't help.. but I was majorly disappointed with it myself.
 
It is supposed to fix the 4GB of ram issue (motherboard dependant) which will be nice. As Vista uses so much of the stuff, it would make sense that you can use more than the bare minimum
 
i went back to XP few days ago, it boots up slightly quicker.

theres no gains in FPS from my Guildwars game, same place, same settings, same res, both 61fps on vista and xp.

xp certainly aint any faster from my experience
 
AndyRS said:
It is supposed to fix the 4GB of ram issue (motherboard dependant) which will be nice. As Vista uses so much of the stuff, it would make sense that you can use more than the bare minimum
Click to expand...

The 4gb memory limit is not a motherboard problem it is the limit with using 32bit systems. They can only address 4gb of total memory including graphics cards, bios, soundcard etc. Change to a 64bit version and 4gb+ is fine.

FM-696 said:
i went back to XP few days ago, it boots up slightly quicker.

theres no gains in FPS from my Guildwars game, same place, same settings, same res, both 61fps on vista and xp.

xp certainly aint any faster from my experience
Click to expand...

Probably has v sync enabled. Try it in a more demanding game that can not get 60FPS solid. SHould notice more of an improvement then.
 
FPS in some random game isn't the best comparison of performance.
You're still on the same hardware, so it'd be unlikely to be different.

I'm (and millions of others) are on about using the operating system.. and that's where Vista is slower.

SP1 is supposed to fix a lot of the issues though.. so we shall see.

Saying that, I installed two new laptops, both with 2GB RAM, and Vista was as quick as XP is on this laptop (was 1GB now 2GB), so I'll put it back on at some point. RAM is the key - give it 2GB+, and I think you'll be laughing with either. (The extra 1GB made no difference in XP, but it's only very light use at the moment)
 
AndyRS said:
It is supposed to fix the 4GB of ram issue (motherboard dependant) which will be nice. As Vista uses so much of the stuff, it would make sense that you can use more than the bare minimum
Click to expand...

it does nothing of the sort.

32 bit OS's are limited to 4Gb memory full stop.
64 bit vista will allow upto 512Gb memory i think it is.

And in terms of vista using so much of it - its because MS have developed a new way of utilising the memory.... vista loads as much of the OS into memory as possible, while leaving more than enough for programs to run. It then reduces the amoutn in memory as applications require more. Long and short of it is that your OS is running alot more from memory rather than the hard drive, and makes it quicker.

Its taken a while to get it, but after a few installations i now have my vista running faster than any previous version of windows x86. Personally i think its better too, but only once you disable alot of numpty security features.

I also have just got the MCP in Vista.
 
S22 JGS said:
AndyRS said:
It is supposed to fix the 4GB of ram issue (motherboard dependant) which will be nice. As Vista uses so much of the stuff, it would make sense that you can use more than the bare minimum
Click to expand...

it does nothing of the sort.

32 bit OS's are limited to 4Gb memory full stop.
64 bit vista will allow upto 512Gb memory i think it is.

And in terms of vista using so much of it - its because MS have developed a new way of utilising the memory.... vista loads as much of the OS into memory as possible, while leaving more than enough for programs to run. It then reduces the amoutn in memory as applications require more. Long and short of it is that your OS is running alot more from memory rather than the hard drive, and makes it quicker.

Its taken a while to get it, but after a few installations i now have my vista running faster than any previous version of windows x86. Personally i think its better too, but only once you disable alot of numpty security features.

I also have just got the MCP in Vista.
Click to expand...

Couldn't agree more. My vista ultimate runs sweet as f**k and once all the memory and paging is done after the first few minutes at boot up my programs load up with the click of a finger!
 
xpvistasigntwo.jpg
 
Daz said:
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/help/83EC0FFE-EE04-4D53-8B87-25D1F05C954E1033.mspx

Haha. WTF?

A few choice ones.

  • Run fewer programs at the same time
    You what? Are you really suggesting I change the way I use a computer?!?
  • Turn off visual effects
    And that, uh, leaves me with what in Vista exactly? :p
  • Restart regularly
    PMSL. Yea.. "We can't manage memory properly"
  • Add more memory
    Uh, yea.. just throw more resources at it - that'll do it ;)
  • Defragment your hard drive
    "We can't be arsed to develop a none-fragmenting file system"
And finally:

  • Don’t settle for slow
Haha, indeed.. don't settle for slow.. install XP :rasp:

I've never seen such nonsense.. ever.
Click to expand...

Actually, I'm in favour of the article. What you've done is attempt to 'sum up' the article in a way that suits your own opinion - which is fine - but I hate people that twist things to suit their own arguments.

It makes valid points. You DON'T need a million and one browser windows open. Add to that the fact that I don't need my media controller open whilst I'm playing a game, or my TV software running whilst I'm playing music. What about Adobe Acrobat quickstart and the likes? If you only ever open a PDF once in a blue moon why do you need to hold 20-30Mb memory for it and a percentage of your processor to make it open one second quicker?

Which brings me onto my next point: Memory usage. Why is it Microsoft's fault that 3rd party developers are s**t at memory management. It can only be so intelligent, and it can't say "I don't need that API open any more that * program forgot to close". It's down to the individual developers to stop being so lazy. I work with it on a daily basis - I know! Lotus Notes is criminal for it.

Turning off Visual effects IS a good idea. If you're running Vista on a bog standard IGP (Intel 915 series perhaps) then you're likely to be making a lot of extra work for a stressed system. Do you need the start bar to 'woosh' up the screen for that? BUT do you like the 'woosh' enough to mean the .01 seconds it spends doing that isn't really a problem?

Adding more memory allows you to run more programs from the fastest access media you have available to you in a reasonable quantity. The more memory you have, the more of your active processes can be stuffed in there. The less you have, the more that has to be paged or the more that you cannot 'pre-load' - such as the Adobe PDF reader above. Why do SQL servers have so much of the stuff? Because they load as much as they can into it ;)

And no operating system can prevent file fragmentation. No matter how hard you try, once you've filled 75% of your disk you're heavily fragmented, simply down to the way that most of your data operates. If you have a large portion of static files like MP3s, MP4s etc then you're ok - they tend to stay exactly where they are. But if you make a Word document for example, and it gets bigger, the file then can't live in it's original allocated space - it needs to be put somewhere else in order to be contiguous or it gets fragmented and you in effect have the original part in the original position, and the excess further on in the disk. That's not so much of a problem, but when files get to 5-6Mb fragmentation starts to impact on performance and as such utilities like Raxco PerfectDisk are brilliant at restoring performance. In one extreme case I managed to drop boot time for a laptop in the office in about half. Now typical home users won't encounter that problem so often, but it does happen.

And it's right - don't settle for slow. It makes your computer into more of a chore or a hate object, I know I hate working on the slower Dell 1650s at work - but relish the chance to do work on our new DL380s as they do things when you ask them to. Same with your laptop - how long before you get fed up if it takes 30 seconds to open IE up?
 
Im no expert, far from it but imho XP is miles better than Vista for general everyday use!
 
Ryan said:
Im no expert, far from it but imho XP is miles better than Vista for general everyday use!
Click to expand...

See that's fine - I've no problem with opinion and if I were to sit at work all day working on SQL issues, NLB issues or even problems with one of the firewalls I'd give money to be sat in front of my XP machine. However when I'm at home I think as operating systems go, Vista is gorgeous and it is relatively simple - it's just a case of re-learning how to do things. And some of us have done it before, going from MS-DOS and then Windows 3.11 to Windows NT, Windows NT to Windows 2000/XP and now it's time again on Windows Vista.
 
S22 JGS said:
well dont get too used to vista... windows 7 is out in 2009
Click to expand...

2010 allegedly, and I think this time they're planning on making it on schedule - Vista was so delayed because of XP SP2. It's supposed to be a major release as well, which means change. I'd get comfortable with Vista - as much as XP has it's use it's coming to the end of it's life soon and I don't see it making it to 2010 - let alone 2011 when people will start moving onto 7. That and it'd be comparable to someone using Windows 98 now.
 
I won't get used to it, but I'll use it until the next one comes along since it is better than XP!
 
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