Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on December 12, 2007 by CyberNet.

Earlier today I posted instructions on how to download and install Vista SP1 RC, and now that I’ve kicked it around a bit I thought I had enough thoughts to constitute an article. The reason why I didn’t include this information in the earlier post was that my installation had not completed, and in the end it took about 45 minutes to finish installing. A bulk of that time was spent after the computer restarted the first time, so don’t think that your done after the first restart.

–The Good–

Microsoft focused the first Service Pack for Vista purely on performance, stability, and reliability. After running it for just a few hours I’ve noticed that they went for the updates that offered the “biggest bang for the buck.” By that I mean they really hit home on some critical areas where performance wasn’t the greatest, and where users would really notice a big difference.

To be more specific here are some of the things that have really stood out to me in Vista SP1:

• They fixed one of the issues that has irked me the most! Previously when I would start up my laptop Vista would pause for about 15 seconds while it was connecting to the network. During that time no programs or Windows services would load, but things like the Start Menu were still usable. After a lot of research I determined that the delay was caused by Vista looking for other computers on the network, and if I disabled file sharing the problem disappeared. I’m happy to say that there are no startup delays for me in Vista SP1!
• Searching indexed files and folders is way more instant than before. I have Vista index all of the files on my entire computer, and sometimes when performing a search for files it would still take several seconds to bring up any matching results. Now it is able to pull in results almost instantaneously when I begin typing. For the curious minds out there I have 150,000+ files in my index that Vista is searching.
• Big file transfer speed improvements! Transferring files from one machine to another is amazingly faster. Before installing Vista SP1 on my computers I transferred a 500MB file over my local network. It took 3 minutes and 25 seconds to complete, but after installing Vista SP1 on both machines it only took 2 minutes and 22 seconds. That’s a 30% difference!
• Remaining time for file transfers is calculated faster, and seems to be a bit more accurate. When I transferred the 500MB file mentioned in the previous bullet the remaining time was calculated immediately upon initiating the transfer. Sometimes it would take 10 or 15 seconds for it to calculate, so it’s a lot nicer now.
• I have yet to see firsthand the advantages of the hotpatching we discussed yesterday, but the less frequent reboots will surely be a nice touch.

–The Bad–

• One thing that really bugs me with Vista SP1 RC is that Microsoft felt the need to brand my desktop as an “evaluation copy.” Sure I’m not running the final release, and Vista SP1 RC will expire in June 2008, but did they still have to do this? If you’re annoyed by the “Evaluation copy. Build 6001″ message here are some instructions on how to remove it, but I’ll probably just leave it alone.
  
• There hasn’t really been any improvements to the User Account Control (UAC) in Vista. I guess this is something that would be included in Service Pack 2 since it is more aligned with new features, but some minor tweaks could have made it less frustrating for new users. A “remember my choice” checkbox on each of the prompts would make it 1,000 times better!
• I would have liked to see a few improvements to the Vista Gadgets, such as an autohide option for the sidebar. There should also be an easier one-key shortcut to show/hide the gadgets in the sidebar and on the desktop. The WinKey+Space Bar just doesn’t cut it for me.

So those are my initial impressions of Vista SP1, along with what I was hoping to see included. Vista SP1 should be in final form the early part of next year, and I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that two years won’t go by before we see SP2 (there was a two year gap between SP1 and SP2 for XP).

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on July 30, 2007 by CyberNet.

One of the things that people complain about the most in Vista is that transferring large files is painfully slow compared to previous versions of Windows. Thanks to a post over at Neowin, both users of the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Vista are able to install a performance and compatibility pack that will address this issue as well as several others.

Some sites appear to be thinking that these patches will be released on Patch Tuesday (a week from tomorrow) via the standard Windows Update system. I’m not so sure about that, and if you look at the bottom of this post I outline all of the things that these patches fix. It’s quite a lengthy list, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Microsoft held them back for the release of Vista SP1. So I would say that this is kind of like the Beta version of Vista SP1 that we never got.

As soon as I saw this I couldn’t wait to download the fixes, but the problem is that they haven’t been officially posted by Microsoft yet. Have no fear, these updates have been leaked (download links posted below), and I’ve already installed the 32-bit versions on my Vista Ultimate installation. There are just two installation files included that you need to install, and then you’ll reboot your computer. If something does go wrong your System Restore should have automatically made a restore point before proceeding with the installation of the updates (I checked and mine had made the restore point automatically).

What’s the result? The file transfer times are dramatically reduced, and it no longer takes forever for Vista to calculate the remaining time! AeroXP has even gone as far as to say that the transfer times are half of what they were.

If you decide to try these out you should remember that they have not been officially released by Microsoft. In fact, they could be some sort of beta version that isn’t even complete. I’ve had no troubles with either of the updates on my 32-bit version of Vista, but your experience may vary.

IMPORTANT: One thing that a Neowin user pointed out was that the 64-bit version will require that you disable driver signing each time your computer starts, which can be done by pressing F8 during the boot process. This includes everyone that’s using Rivatuner, atitool and/or Peerguardian on Vista 64-bit.

Download from MediaFire: 64-bit and 32-bit
Download from MediaFire (requires 7-Zip to extract): 64-bit and 32-bit

Here are all of the details regarding the two updates:

938979 Vista Performance and Reliability Pack
This update resolves a number of individual issues which may be affecting some computers running Windows Vista. These issues have been reported by customers using the Error Reporting service, product support, or other means. Installing this update will improve the performance and responsiveness for some scenarios and improves reliability of Windows Vista in a variety of scenarios. Some examples of the improvements contained in this update are:

• Improves performance in resuming back to the desktop from the Photo and Windows Energy screensaver.
• Resolves an issue where some secured web pages using advanced security technologies may not get displayed in Internet Explorer on Windows Vista.
• Resolves an issue where a shared printer may not get installed if the printer is connected to a Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 system and User Access Control is disabled on the Vista client.
• Resolves an issue where creating AVI files on Vista may get corrupted.
• Improves the performance in calculating the ‘estimated time remaining’ when copying/moving large files.
• Improves performance in bringing up Login Screen after resuming from Hibernate.
• Resolves an issue where synchronization of offline files to a server can get corrupted.
• Resolves a compatibility issue with RAW images created by Canon EOS 1D/1DS Digital SLR Camera which can lead to data loss. This only affects RAW images created by these two specific camera models.
• Resolves an issue where a computer can lose its default Gateway address when resuming from sleep mode.
• Improves the performance when copying or moving entire directories containing large amounts of data or files.
• Improves the performance of Vista’s Memory Manager in specific customer scenarios and prevents some issues which may lead to memory corruption.

938194 Vista Compatibility and Reliability Pack
This update resolves a number of individual issues which may be affecting some computers running Windows Vista. These issues have been reported by customers using the Error Reporting service, product support, or other means. Installing this update will improve the reliability and hardware compatibility of Windows Vista in a variety of scenarios. Some examples of the improvements contained in this update are:

• Improved reliability and compatibility of Vista when used with newer graphics cards in several specific scenarios and configurations.
• Improved reliability when working with external displays on a laptop.
• Increased compatibility with many video drivers.
• Improved visual appearance of games with high intensity graphics.
• Improved quality of playback for HD-DVD and Blue-Ray disks on large monitors.
• Improved reliability for Internet Explorer when some third party toolbars are installed on Vista.
• Improved Vista reliability in networking configuration scenarios.
• Improved the reliability of Windows Calendar in Vista.
• Improved reliability of systems that were upgraded from XP to Vista.
• Increased compatibility with many printer drivers.
• Increased reliability and performance of Vista when entering sleep and resuming from sleep.

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on December 06, 2007 by CyberNet.

Microsoft has officially confirmed that a Release Candidate of Vista SP1 (build 6001.17052.071129-2315) will be made available to the public next week, but there was no word on exactly what day it’s going to drop. Presumably it will be on Tuesday, December 11th which coincides with Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday. Yesterday Microsoft Connect members had the pleasure of downloading the Release Candidate, and today MSDN and TechNet subscribers will be able download Vista SP1.

Since the Beta stage the Vista SP1 installer has seen a 30% reduction in size, and the amount of space that it occupies on the hard drive has also been significantly reduced. Inevitably Vista SP1 will be deployable over a network, but Microsoft will provide a “blocker patch” to prevent computers from updating to the Service Pack until administrators have had time to review it.

I do have a word of wisdom for all of you who are contemplating whether you are going to install this. If you download and install the Vista SP1 Release Candidate you’ll also have to uninstall it before installing a newer version that is released later on. For some of you it may not be worth the hassle, so make sure you take that into consideration.

Here’s a recap from one of our previous posts on the improvements Vista SP1 brings to the table:

Reliability improvements:

• Improved reliability and compatibility of Windows Vista when used with newer graphics cards in several specific scenarios and configurations.
• Improved reliability when working with external displays on a laptop.
• Improved Windows Vista reliability in networking configuration scenarios.
• Improved reliability of systems that were upgraded from Windows XP to Windows Vista.
• Increased compatibility with many printer drivers.
• Increased reliability and performance of Windows Vista when entering sleep and resuming from sleep.

Performance improvements:

• Improves the speed of copying and extracting files.
• Improves the time to become active from Hibernate and Resume modes.
• Improves the performance of domain-joined PCs when operating off the domain; in the current release version of Windows Vista, users would experience long delays when opening the File dialog box.
• Improves performance of Windows Internet Explorer 7 in Windows Vista, reducing CPU utilization and speeding JavaScript parsing.
• Improves battery life by reducing CPU utilization by not redrawing the screen as frequently, on certain computers.
• Improves the logon experience by removing the occasional 10-second delay between pressing CTRL-ALT-DEL and the password prompt displaying.
• Addresses an issue in the current version of Windows Vista that makes browsing network file shares consume significant bandwidth and not perform as fast as expected.

Thanks to Storytellerofsci-fi for the tip!

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com