Vista SP1 Final - Available to the Public Now ?

[VinDSL]

Caveat emptor!

This is a long thread! Unless you've been following it...

You're probably better off starting on the last page ( >> ) and reading back through the posts.

 

[Noema]

I installed it last week...it sped up my boot times as well as increasing transfer rates over a LAN.

However, I had to uninstall it since it created issues with switching user profiles. The screen would black out whenever I used Winkey+L, with no way of recovering other than rebooting.

I'm eagerly awaiting the final version, though.

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: Noema
However, I had to uninstall it since it created issues with switching user profiles. The screen would black out whenever I used Winkey+L, with no way of recovering other than rebooting...

Just tried Winkey+L and it worked fine!

The thing is... Winkey+L 'locks' your computer and requires a password to resume.

I don't think you can switch users unless you Logoff first...

Did you try the 'three-finger salute' method, before rolling it back?

EDIT

I'm having a deja vu!

I remember somebody complaining about this before - W2K Pro, XP Pro or something...

Anyway, works for me!

 

[Noema]

Originally posted by: VinDSL


The thing is... Winkey+L 'locks' your computer and requires a password to resume.

I know what Winkey+L does. I've been using it for years.

What happened was: the computer would just blank out after resuming a user's session. The screen would just go black, with no way to make it load the desktop correctly. Which requiered a reboot. It's probably a problem related to SP1 RC+my hardware config, but definitely bad enough to make the computer unusable. Uninstalling SP1 fixed it.

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: Noema
It's probably a problem related to SP1 RC+my hardware config...

I see...

This lappy is only a few months old, so I guess it's a little more Vista tolerant!

 

[VinDSL]

Just noticed this...

SOURCE

With SP1, Windows Vista will report the amount of system memory installed rather than report the amount of system memory available to the OS. Therefore 32-bit systems equipped with 4GB of RAM will report all 4BG in many places throughout the OS, such as the System Control Panel. However, this behavior is dependent on having a compatible BIOS, so not all users may notice this change.

So I checked...

SURE ENOUGH

Come on in - the water's fine!

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: VinDSL
Just noticed this...

SOURCE

With SP1, Windows Vista will report the amount of system memory installed rather than report the amount of system memory available to the OS. Therefore 32-bit systems equipped with 4GB of RAM will report all 4BG in many places throughout the OS, such as the System Control Panel. However, this behavior is dependent on having a compatible BIOS, so not all users may notice this change.

So I checked...

SURE ENOUGH

Come on in - the water's fine!

Just to clarify, Vista 32 bit will still be under the memory restrictions with 4GB etc...the reason behind showing the 4GB was to cut down on support calls about the missing ram when 4GB is installed ,it would take too long to explain to a non technical personal (ie the user on the other end of the phone )where the missing ram went when 4GB is installed ,this is Microsoft's way of doing a quick fix or fooling the user .

Personally I would use Vista x64(which I do ) with 4GB and avoid all the issues with 32 bit memory restriction.

I would also wait for official release of SP1 rather then Beta RC version,you will have to uninstall RC build anyway when final gets here ,plus you don't know what changes/updates will be in the final release of SP1.

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: Mem
[T]his is Microsoft's way of doing a quick fix or fooling the user.

Well, that's a rather cynical view (which I'm guilty of, as well) but the flip side is...

If you have 4GB installed, why shouldn't the OS report you have 4GB installed?

Why should it 'fool the user' into thinking they only have 3453MB installed (in my case)?


EDIT


Here you go - 'truth' in advertising...

Belarc Advisor

2048 + 2048 = 3454

Do you prefer that?

LoL!

I can see this one coming - 4096 MB doesn't equal 4.00 GB right?


EDIT2


My bad!

Just ran it through the calculator - 4096 MB DOES equal 4.00 GB - so, Vista SP1 IS reporting it correctly! :thumbsup:

 

[hooterville]

When will the final version be out?

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: hooterville
When will the final version be out?

Nobody knows for sure, but I got tired of waiting...

It's a learning experience for me, as much as anything. I like to stay ahead of the curve!

SP1 RC does have some bugs (but nothing major so far) so caveat emptor, if you decide to run it!

If you don't feel comfortable experimenting, you can wait, but any OS developer will tell you that NOTHING is ever complete and final.

LoL!

Hell, I'm running W2K Pro on most of my machines. It's 8 years old, and MS is still patching it on a near-monthly basis, you know? They finally threw in the towel on Win98 and derivatives - they were ultimately unfixable - and XP (going on 7 years old) is living on borrowed time!

So, you just have to decide when you want take the plunge...

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: VinDSL

Originally posted by: Mem
[T]his is Microsoft's way of doing a quick fix or fooling the user.

Well, that's a rather cynical view (which I'm guilty of, as well) but the flip side is...

If you have 4GB installed, why shouldn't the OS report you have 4GB installed?

Why should it 'fool the user' into thinking they only have 3453MB installed (in my case)?


EDIT


Here you go - 'truth' in advertising...

Belarc Advisor

2048 + 2048 = 3454

Do you prefer that?

LoL!

I can see this one coming - 4096 MB doesn't equal 4.00 GB right?


EDIT2


My bad!

Just ran it through the calculator - 4096 MB DOES equal 4.00 GB - so, Vista SP1 IS reporting it correctly! :thumbsup:

Good article here.

So at least I can access 4 GB, right? Nope.

The original IBM PC?s processor could access 1024 KB of physical address space, but you could only use 640 KB for RAM. The remaining 384 KB of address space was reserved for memory-mapped hardware and ROM. A similar situation exists with current systems: hardware reserves large chunks of the upper 1 GB of physical address space. Because of these reserved areas, a system with a 32-bit physical address space will be limited to somewhere around 3.1-3.5 GB of RAM.

To overcome the 32-bit limitation, recent x86 CPUs (Pentium Pro and later) have 36 address pins and can address 64 GB of RAM. The original design of the x86 32-bit protected mode only provided access to 32-bit addresses, so PAE (Physical Address Extensions) mode was created to allow access to 36-bit addresses.

PAE mode changes the layout of the page tables. Page tables map virtual addresses to physical addresses. Without PAE, the 32-bit virtual addresses map through 2 levels of page tables (1 level for huge pages) and are translated to 32-bit physical addresses. With PAE, the 32-bit virtual addresses map through 3 levels of page tables (2 levels for huge pages) and are translated to 64-bit physical addresses.

PAE doesn?t do anything to the virtual memory limit. Pointers are still 32 bits, so a process can only access 4 GB of address space at a time. However, using PAE, two or more processes could each access a different 4 GB of physical memory. With proper operating system support (i.e. AWE on Windows operating systems) PAE also allows a process to allocate additional memory outside its normal address space, then swap portions of that additional memory into its address space as needed.





My BIOS reports 4 (or more) GB of RAM, I?ve enabled PAE, and I still only see 3.1 GB. What gives?

Unless you?re running one of the advanced server varieties of Windows, you won?t see more than 4 GB of physical memory. This is a limitation of Windows designed (I assume) to encourage people building expensive servers to pay more for Windows than those who are using it for normal day-to-day activities.

As for that last 0.9 GB, it all comes down to drivers and system stability. Not all drivers behave well in the presence of 64 bit physical addresses. Many driver authors assume that only the bottom 32 bits of the physical address are valid. Others don't properly handle the creation of bounce buffers when necessary (they?re needed when transferring data from a hardware device to/from a buffer that is above the 4 GB mark in physical memory).

Windows XP originally supported a full 4 GB of RAM. You would be limited to 3.1-3.5 GB without PAE, but if you enabled PAE on a 4 GB system with proper chipset and motherboard support, you would have access to the full 4 GB. As more people began to take advantage of this feature using commodity (read: cheapest product with the features I want) hardware, Microsoft noticed a new source of crashes and blue screens. These were traced to drivers failing to correctly handle 64-bit physical addresses. A decision was made to improve system stability at a cost of possibly wasting memory. XP SP2 introduced a change such that only the bottom 32 bits of physical memory will ever be used, even if that means some memory will not be used. (This is also the case with 32-bit editions of Vista.) While this is annoying to those who want that little bit of extra oomph, and while I would have liked a way to re-enable the memory ?at my own risk?, this is probably the right decision for 99.9% of the general population of Windows users (and probably saves Dell millions in support costs). See the relevant KB article and a TechNet article for details.

 

[hooterville]

Will the final release be that HUGE ?

 

[stash]

Not if you install it through Windows Update. For most people it will be 50-100MB.

 

[Oil]

Installed SP1 RC here yesterday, haven't noticed any changes at all really. I guess thats a good thing

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: OSx86
Installed SP1 RC here yesterday, haven't noticed any changes at all really. I guess thats a good thing

I did a lot of 'detective work' before taking the SP1 RC plunge - didn't want to bork my lappy!

The general consensus was, if you're *looking* for a big change, you'll be disappointed...

This upgrade fixes the 'innards' of the OS, not the outward appearance and functionality.

Rather than doing a bunch of copy n' pasting CHECK THIS OUT

It's the best overview of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 on the web!

For an overview of the SP1 RC upgrade THIS IS THE ONE (same church - different pew)

 

[stash]

It's the best overview of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 on the web!

I beg to differ.

Overview of Vista SP1: http://technet2.microsoft.com/...0de91033.mspx?mfr=true
Noteable Changes in SP1 RC1: http://technet2.microsoft.com/...a03e1033.mspx?mfr=true

 

[VinDSL]

ZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz...

I'm sorry! What did you say?

 

[stash]

The second link is a pretty comprehensive bullet point list of pretty much every change in SP1. They may not all be noticeable, but I figured people would be interested in an authoritative list of changes from the source, rather than vague articles from Paul Thurrott.

 

[Techno Pride]

Originally posted by: Mem

Just to clarify, Vista 32 bit will still be under the memory restrictions with 4GB etc...the reason behind showing the 4GB was to cut down on support calls about the missing ram when 4GB is installed ,it would take too long to explain to a non technical personal (ie the user on the other end of the phone )where the missing ram went when 4GB is installed ,this is Microsoft's way of doing a quick fix or fooling the user .

Does Task Manager show 4GB or the actual usable space? This's important because I need to allocate specific amts of RAM to certain programs.

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: Techno Pride
Does Task Manager show 4GB or the actual usable space? This's important because I need to allocate specific amts of RAM to certain programs.

Fair enough!

Let's take a look at TASK MANAGER

And here's SYSTEM INFORMATION

How now brown cow?

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: VinDSL

Originally posted by: Techno Pride
Does Task Manager show 4GB or the actual usable space? This's important because I need to allocate specific amts of RAM to certain programs.

Fair enough!

Let's take a look at TASK MANAGER

And here's SYSTEM INFORMATION

How now brown cow?

If you had been using Vista x64 it would show 4GB Total Physical Memory rather then 3.37GB as in your case,so you lose 0.63GB of ram by going 32 bit,one reason why I went Vista x64 and yes mine does show 4GB total physical memory .

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: Mem
If you had been using Vista x64 it would show 4GB Total Physical Memory rather then 3.37GB as in your case,so you lose 0.63GB of ram...

Heh! Whatever...

Regardless, this thing still flies! I'll NEVER go back to 2 GB on Vista x86... or switch to x64 for 0.63GB of RAM.

The larger point is, Vista SP1 is now reporting the memory correctly - to users, to programs, et cetera.

Nobody is trying to fool anybody!

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: VinDSL

Originally posted by: Mem
If you had been using Vista x64 it would show 4GB Total Physical Memory rather then 3.37GB as in your case,so you lose 0.63GB of ram...

Heh! Whatever...

Regardless, this thing still flies! I'll NEVER go back to 2 GB on Vista x86... or switch to x64 for 0.63GB of RAM.

The larger point is, Vista SP1 is now reporting the memory correctly - to users, to programs, et cetera.

Nobody is trying to fool anybody!

I wonder if Microsoft will do the samething to XP when SP3 comes out and fool them too .

Sidenote: Bet they get phone calls asking why do I have 4GB installed physical ram and yet its also showing 3.5GB etc...of available physical ram .

 

[XBoxLPU]

Originally posted by: VinDSL

Originally posted by: Mem
If you had been using Vista x64 it would show 4GB Total Physical Memory rather then 3.37GB as in your case,so you lose 0.63GB of ram...

Heh! Whatever...

Regardless, this thing still flies! I'll NEVER go back to 2 GB on Vista x86... or switch to x64 for 0.63GB of RAM.

The larger point is, Vista SP1 is now reporting the memory correctly - to users, to programs, et cetera.

Nobody is trying to fool anybody!

What is so wrong with going Vista x64? I have had zero issues with any hardware or software

 

[VinDSL]

LoL!

If you want to be a stickler...

Look at the SYSTEM INFORMATION

On the right (in the widget) you'll see I have 3453 MB of physical memory.

In System Information it says I have 3.37 GB.

Actually, 3453 MB = 3.3721 GB, so they're cheating me out of 0.0021 GB in the report.

Another reason to move to x64, yes?