Bad Windows

Those of you that have installed the RC1 (Release Candidate 1) of Vista SP1 (Service Pack 1) may have noticed that some areas are fixed, entirely new things are broken and some things just remain the same, like the slow file transfer issues over a network which is still present.

Don’t get me wrong, Vista SP1 RC1 does fix some issues that have plagued Vista since it released, the slow shutdown, resume from hibernate/sleep are all fixed.  There are other speed increases as well but perhaps are not so noticeable by the average user with the proof in artificial benchmarks.

Those artificial benchmarks have been called into question and may not represent real world scenarios but until something better comes along that’s what we’re all going to have to deal with.

Read more at Blorge

"Microsoft Corp. has warned Windows Home Server users not to edit files stored on their backup systems with several of its programs, including Vista Photo Gallery and Office's OneNote and Outlook, as well as files generated by popular finance software such as Quicken and QuickBooks." Crustymonkey asks Don't back up your files to Windows Home Server, as recommended by Microsoft themselves? I'm not exactly what the point is in having a home server if you can't back up files on it."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Register is running an article, detailing the strange phenomenon of incredibly slow file copies under Vista. That is a known problem, and has been widely discussed before.

The article describes that some people have had success with some ratrher complex sounding workarounds…

    To be fair, some … have reported success in eradicating the Vista malady. Some report SP1 does speed things up. Others have seen improvements after running through a series of steps that includes disabling Windows search service, tweaking Vista's user account control settings and setting network interface cards at half duplex or auto negotiate.

… but it ends on a sober note:

    But even then, there's no guarantee the problem will be fixed. With Microsoft's buggy code and non-existent communication, we'll be sitting on the upgrade sidelines for the foreseeable future, thank you very much.

Clearly, Microsoft is quite capable of implementing a decent file copy algorithm, as we have seen with Windows XP, for example, which did not have any of these problems.

Read more … 

From the Ask Ed mailbag:

    Ed,

    Do you know whether Microsoft ever intends to release a 64-bit driver for their fingerprint reader?

    I have the Fingerprint Reader/Wireless IntelliMouse combination where the Fingerprint Reader is part of the IntelliMouse Receiver. It is a real waste if there will be no 64-bit driver because otherwise I’ve had no real issues with Vista Ultimate x64.

    Alex

Good question. Fingerprint readers are becoming fairly common in business-class notebooks. I have one on my Asus Tablet PC, which runs the 32-bit version of Windows Vista Business Edition, and I’ve grown to enjoy the convenience of using a swipe of the finger to log on and connect to e-mail servers and websites. I’d love to have the same functionality on my desktop, where I’m running Vista Ultimate x64. But this is yet another example of the little incompatibilities and annoyances that exist in the 64-bit Vista ecosystem. When I looked through the Windows Vista Hardware Compatibility List just now in search of a biometric device with the Certified for Windows Vista label, I couldn’t find a single one – for x86 or x64 editions. There’s nothing on the lesser Works with Windows Vista list, either.

Read more at ZDNet 

If you have been waiting a year to install Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system because you think the upcoming Service Pack 1 is going to correct all the problems with the original OS — think again.

By Microsoft's own admission, Service Pack 1, which will probably be pushed out as an update in January, will do little to resolve the biggest headache associated with Vista — incompatibility with older hardware and software.

To make matters worse, the public beta of Service Pack 1 now available for download has its own set of serious bugs, which is likely to frustrate those who are already using Vista.

I installed SP1 on two Vista machines — one a laptop that had a clean install of Vista and another a desktop that had been upgrade to Vista from XP. There were no problems on the laptop. But after completing the SP1 install on the desktop, Windows immediately reported I my activation key was already in use and that I would be required to buy a new one in three days — or lose OS functionality. Great.

Read more …

Five years in the making and this is the best Microsoft could do?

It's not that Vista is awful. The integrated security and parental controls are nice, and the Aero interface is as whizzy as it gets. Searching and wireless networking are much faster and easier than under XP.

It's just that Vista isn't all that good. Many of the innovations the operating system was supposed to bring–like more efficient file and communications systems–got tossed overboard as Microsoft struggled to get the OS out the door, some three years after it was first promised. Despite its hefty hardware requirements, Vista is slower than XP.

Read more at PC World 

Microsoft's forthcoming Windows Server 2008 provides a two-for-one bonus: virtualization software with the operating system itself, and potentially closer integration with some Linux operating systems than it has ever offered before, according to an early, initial look at the server's Release Candidate 1 (RC1).

New technology allows for closer interoperability between Windows and Linux than we've seen in the past, and also puts it at loggerheads with technology offered by VMware, whose virtualization technology has been taking the industry by storm.

The early release of Windows Server 2008's Hyper-V Beta signals that Microsoft is well ahead of schedule in a key area of development. But it's not shocking: Part of the reason is that the Hyper-V technology started with the Xen source code, so the company had a big head start.

Microsoft partially funded the Xen project. In a big way, this is why the beta release supports Linux interoperability. Microsoft plans to support some enterprise Linux distros in the long term — the first one being SUSE Enterprise 10 with SP1. To expand its integration capabilities with other Linux distros, the Windows Server 2008 group is opening up a testing program through Microsoft Connect's site. (Solution providers have to apply to get into the testing program.)

Read more at CRN.com 

Windows Vista contains so many quirks, unaccountable behaviors, and confounding features that it almost seems to have been designed to vex its users. Unfortunately, as most Vista users are already dealing with job demands, impending deadlines, and assorted miscellaneous interruptions, they have little patience left for operating system foibles. The situation tends to make them annoyed.

But author David Karp has a different take. "Why suffer when you can take matters into your own hands" he asks. Karp has a rare talent for helping cranky computer users become serene. His books have been alleviating the annoyances of computer users for many years, and his latest, Windows Vista Annoyances (O’Reilly, US $34.99) may be the timeliest of his works to date.

The book offers a wide-ranging collection of solutions, hacks, and time-saving tips for working around the most irritating features and getting Vista to do much more than Microsoft intended. The book helps you to:

Read more at WebWire

I went into a few "big box" retailers over the last couple of days and "played" on the machines they had after a friend mistakenly bought a "cheap deal" vista machine..

I was amazed as to how SLOW they were, just purely unresponsive and sluggish, I took at look at the vista scores most had and 2-3 were not uncommon! (My main machine is a healthy 6.5) and their low scores really did show in everything from the clicking of the mouse to opeing basic office apps which was a 30 second endurance. Even opening search or paint was just awfully slow and it usually asked me " did you really click on this application?"

Go back 10 years to 1997 and  let's compare this machine to the "craputer" of the 1997 day, a Cyrix MediaGX 166MHz with a whole 16MB ram running Windows95. The difference is amazing.
 
This old heap of junk started up in 30 seconds, opened Word in about 7 seconds, Paint in 5 (which I thought was really slow back then compared to Windows 3.11)  Running opera 8 on the MediaGX ran surprisingly well. Using winamp (2) worked quickly, and everyting functioned when you clicked on it.

Read more at GeekZone 

Microsoft earlier this year offered to bestow high-end versions of its Windows and Office software on home users, under the condition that they let the software giant monitor their usage.

While the prospect sparked privacy concerns among a few, the dilemma of whether to participate in the trade-off may now be moot: On Tuesday, the company promptly ended the Windows Feedback Program's free-software offer, saying that it had received enough volunteers.

It's unclear how many users successfully registered for the program, which offered software including Windows Vista Ultimate, Office Ultimate 2007 and Microsoft Money Plus Premium. Officially, registration for the Windows Feedback Program continues, but without the offer of free software.

Read more at internetnews.com