Why do people hate Vista?

[Scooby Doo]

I should rephrase that. It's not grinding grinding, just the activity light is continuously on. The drive itself is only a few months old.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
Games ("processor-intensive apps") will never run as fast in Vista as they do in XP. There's simply more software layers to deal with, thus overhead will always be higher. Especially the software audio stack in Vista, compared with the hardware-accelerated audio in XP.

Bzzzzt. Be careful speaking in such absolutes. You mean applications not specifically written for Vista right?

There are semaphores available in Vista that allow two (or more) sections of code to access the same critical section without threads going into a wait state. Applications written for XP were written before this was available so they won't know such a feature is available.

Larger does not *always* mean slower. Some times more code equals more intelligent and therefore faster.

 

[zig3695]

"Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
Games ("processor-intensive apps") will never run as fast in Vista as they do in XP. There's simply more software layers to deal with, thus overhead will always be higher. Especially the software audio stack in Vista, compared with the hardware-accelerated audio in XP. "

search enough an youll certainly find numerous IDENTICAL posts about the time windows XP came out and nobody knew why they should ditch win98 or even 2000. i take it youre still running win98 right? because it has less software layers and therefore faster then XP.

 

[videopho]

I'm in my 3rd week of Vista 64 Premium and haven't had a crash or freeze nor any sort of unpredictable behavior, thus far.
Right off the bat, it's by far the most stable and joyful OS I've ever associated with e.g. unix, vms, 3.1, 95, 98 me, win2k, xp(mce), x64 and now Vista.
I'm going to upgrade my other rig (see sig#1) from x64 to Ultimate 32 in this coming week.
Kudos to MS for such a wonderful piece of software.
Nicely done.
Indeed

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Smilin

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
Games ("processor-intensive apps") will never run as fast in Vista as they do in XP. There's simply more software layers to deal with, thus overhead will always be higher. Especially the software audio stack in Vista, compared with the hardware-accelerated audio in XP.

Bzzzzt. Be careful speaking in such absolutes. You mean applications not specifically written for Vista right?

There are semaphores available in Vista that allow two (or more) sections of code to access the same critical section without threads going into a wait state. Applications written for XP were written before this was available so they won't know such a feature is available.

Larger does not *always* mean slower. Some times more code equals more intelligent and therefore faster.

Perhaps I should have clarified. I was speaking of existing games on the market, games designed for XP that used the DirectSound/DS3D APIs.

 

[Scooby Doo]

Originally posted by: videopho
I'm in my 3rd week of Vista 64 Premium and haven't had a crash or freeze nor any sort of unpredictable behavior, thus far.
Right off the bat, it's by far the most stable and joyful OS I've ever associated with e.g. unix, vms, 3.1, 95, 98 me, win2k, xp(mce), x64 and now Vista.
I'm going to upgrade my other rig (see sig#1) from x64 to Ultimate 32 in this coming week.
Kudos to MS for such a wonderful piece of software.
Nicely done.
Indeed

Wish I could say the same
I now know it's not just the game that causes it, just had it happen with several other apps too.

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry

Originally posted by: Smilin

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
Games ("processor-intensive apps") will never run as fast in Vista as they do in XP. There's simply more software layers to deal with, thus overhead will always be higher. Especially the software audio stack in Vista, compared with the hardware-accelerated audio in XP.

Bzzzzt. Be careful speaking in such absolutes. You mean applications not specifically written for Vista right?

There are semaphores available in Vista that allow two (or more) sections of code to access the same critical section without threads going into a wait state. Applications written for XP were written before this was available so they won't know such a feature is available.

Larger does not *always* mean slower. Some times more code equals more intelligent and therefore faster.

Perhaps I should have clarified. I was speaking of existing games on the market, games designed for XP that used the DirectSound/DS3D APIs.

We're back on this sh*t again? I thought you'd finally gotten the point that ds3d is NOT emulated and will not cause slowdowns? There IS Directsound emulation, but acceleration is impossible, and DS3D was ALWAYS used in the context of acceleration - which is why it pretty much breaks when that acceleration isnt available.

From creative:

"The Vista audio architecture disables DirectSound 3D hardware acceleration; resulting in legacy DirectSound based EAX game titles not working as they did in XP."

As far as I can tell, DS2D is emulated 100% perfectly, and 2d hardware acceleration has been irrelevant for years - and regarding 2d audio, also from creative, who know far more about this than you do:

"The Windows Vista audio engine runs faster than the Windows XP audio engine did, and Vista has tighter requirements on audio buffer position accuracy than XP did."

And again, if you are serious about gaming audio, you'll have an x-fi/audigy which are the only realistic choices due to true harware acceleration and EAX support, and you can use the alchemy program with them. And this isnt emulation, it's translation - dlls are rewritten and translated from ds3d to openal outside of the game, and you get full 100% hardware acceleration and EAX, even if you uninstall alchemy afterwards.

So you really, really need to get over that nonsense - it's just not factual. IGet that through your thick skull already so you can try and have a real point.

 

[Slammy1]

Originally posted by: bsobel

Sorry, I got that the BB told you that, my comments where directed at him, not you.

I should apologize for the misunderstanding. I suppose the internet is full of communications mishaps. It is sad that someone who people would take as an authority like the BB CSR would try to misrepresent things so strongly. Someone else had a similar experience, I think they were trying to get us to buy a more expensive laptop.

The only weirdness I've seen so far is disappearing files/folders. I can access them through the programs that created them but not through explorer. I don't blame Vista for that, simply my own lack of knowledge about Vista security and such. It'll probably be a while before I upgrade on my main PC as I have MCE2k5 on that w/o a DX10 GPU. Of course, the laptop further delays my upgrading that at all.

 

[bsobel]

The only weirdness I've seen so far is disappearing files/folders. I can access them through the programs that created them but not through explorer. I don't blame Vista for that, simply my own lack of knowledge about Vista security and such. It'll probably be a while before I upgrade on my main PC as I have MCE2k5 on that w/o a DX10 GPU. Of course, the laptop further delays my upgrading that at all.

Vista includes a file/registry virtulaization feature that redirects IO to senstive parts of the file system to a backup location. This kicks in for certain applications which are not Vista aware.

As an example. Say you have application X installed into c:\Program Files\X and that program wants to store some settings file (e.g. x.ini). For a number of reasons limited user accounts can't write to anything under c:\Program Files\X and administrators (at least with UAC) have to at least approve any writes there. The program should be storing that kinda of settings file in your profile (if its' user specific) or in the all users profile store (if it's machine wide). However, many application still presume they can write to their install directory whenever they want.

Vista 'redirects' those writes to it's VirtualStore. If you look under (presuming a normal install on C c:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Local\VirtualStore you'll see the layout mimics your root drive and those 'missing' files are most likely there.

 

[Arkaign]

I'm getting more business from Vista-related issues these days, and I'm able to make at least 1/3 of the people happy with Vista

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: Scooby Doo
I should rephrase that. It's not grinding grinding, just the activity light is continuously on. The drive itself is only a few months old.

Try a different HD,replace the IDE cable,see if these changes make any difference to stability on your PC,you have to start hardware troubleshooting at some point.

Hardware can go faulty anytime,don't rely on the HD only being a few months old,btw if you still have problems after trying the above I would try a PCI IDE controller to rule out your onboard IDE controller.

 

[Slammy1]

Originally posted by: bsobel


Vista includes a file/registry virtulaization feature that redirects IO to senstive parts of the file system to a backup location. This kicks in for certain applications which are not Vista aware.

As an example. Say you have application X installed into c:\Program Files\X and that program wants to store some settings file (e.g. x.ini). For a number of reasons limited user accounts can't write to anything under c:\Program Files\X and administrators (at least with UAC) have to at least approve any writes there. The program should be storing that kinda of settings file in your profile (if its' user specific) or in the all users profile store (if it's machine wide). However, many application still presume they can write to their install directory whenever they want.

Vista 'redirects' those writes to it's VirtualStore. If you look under (presuming a normal install on C c:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Local\VirtualStore you'll see the layout mimics your root drive and those 'missing' files are most likely there.

You would be correct, sir.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: bsobel
Vista includes a file/registry virtulaization feature that redirects IO to senstive parts of the file system to a backup location. This kicks in for certain applications which are not Vista aware.

As an example. Say you have application X installed into c:\Program Files\X and that program wants to store some settings file (e.g. x.ini). For a number of reasons limited user accounts can't write to anything under c:\Program Files\X and administrators (at least with UAC) have to at least approve any writes there. The program should be storing that kinda of settings file in your profile (if its' user specific) or in the all users profile store (if it's machine wide). However, many application still presume they can write to their install directory whenever they want.

Vista 'redirects' those writes to it's VirtualStore. If you look under (presuming a normal install on C c:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Local\VirtualStore you'll see the layout mimics your root drive and those 'missing' files are most likely there.

Wow, something that is actually useful.

I have that problem under XP, when attempting to set up different limited-user accounts for people, and teach them how to use their machine. I tell them to use the "Admin" account for software installation, but inevitably, they install software that is unaware of XP and NTFS permissions, and expects to be able to globally write to the Program Files\xxxx directory.

Thus one needs to make that directory world-writable, or use the Admin account when attempting to use that program. The latter is the easiest route to take for non-power-users.

This makes using limited-user accounts under XP problematic for many people.

So what happens under Vista if one does make the specific Program Files\xxxx directory world-writable. Does it still using the VirtualStore, or does it allow writing directly to that directory? (Just thinking of something like Kerio Personal Firewall, where having per-user rulesets would not be a good idea.)

Perhaps MS will get a clue, and realize that the only proper approach to filesystems, is to virtualize the FS for every application, and only allow writing to temporary copies of files, and then only merging those files back into the global filesystem state if/when the application completes without error, or with specificly written checkpoint updates. CPU designers have been following the same design priciple for years, when are the software guys going to figure it out. It's the only way for the OS to gaurantee global consistency of user data in the filesystem. It would prevent the corruption of user data files when applications crash while files are in a half-modified state. (Such as what happens if Firefox crashes and people lose their history, bookmarks, etc.)

Allowing "Previous Versions" is a half-assed way around that issue, but it still requires manual user cleanup/rollback of files if an application crashes. Too messy to be truely user-friendly.

 

[bsobel]

Perhaps MS will get a clue, and realize that the only proper approach to filesystems, is to virtualize the FS for every application, and only allow writing to temporary copies of files, and then only merging those files back into the global filesystem state if/when the application completes without error, or with specificly written checkpoint updates. CPU designers have been following the same design priciple for years, when are the software guys going to figure it out. It's the only way for the OS to gaurantee global consistency of user data in the filesystem. It would prevent the corruption of user data files when applications crash while files are in a half-modified state. (Such as what happens if Firefox crashes and people lose their history, bookmarks, etc.)

VL, instead of slamming MS, why not spend some time knowing what your talking about. Vista includes Transactional NTFS, it's one of the primary new features oF NTFS in this server/client release cycle.

 

[VirtualLarry]

That's a good step forward, but still falls short of the overall goal, since it appears to be another API that requires specific support from the app to use it. It doesn't appear to globally apply to all apps, including legacy ones. The solution I suggested is still the superior one. Perhaps MS will take the next step for their next OS rev.

Edit: Here's a good article - http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdn...7/07/NTFS/default.aspx
From some of the examples, specifically the one about shutting the machine off in the middle of a Windows update, and having the filesystem rollback to the last consistent state for that transaction, you can see the applicability of my example of having an application crash partway though updating a file, and corrupting the user's global filesystem data state.
The good part is that MS is working on this; the bad part is that they aren't applying it globally to apps yet, which is what really should be done, and have the executable images of apps that need special requirements to be specially marked. IOW, enable transactional filesystem operations by default, to protect against any app crashes having an effect on user data consistency.

I know that I've suffered from this problem for years and years, corrupted Mozilla data files, corrupted Free Agent newsreader stores, you name it.

 

[ultimatebob]

The driver support for Vista still sucks for older devices, and I don't think that hardware manufacturers even care anymore. Here are some examples that I noticed:

1) HP decided not write Vista drivers for my PhotoSmart 7350. They tell you to use the generic DeskJet 5550 drivers, but they do not include support for ink level monitoring or the memory card slots on the printer. Bastards!
2) Canon also didn't bother to write camera drivers for my old PowerShot S45 camera. The 2000/XP drivers didn't work, and I also can't load the pictures from the CompactFlash slot on my printer thanks to the lack of support from HP :|
3) ATI didn't bother to write Vista drivers for the TV tuner on the AllInWonder 9800 Pro as well. That would have been a nice feature to use with the Media Center built into Vista Home Premium, too That basically means that my old computer is basically stuck on XP unless I want to give up on the TV tuner.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
That's a good step forward, but still falls short of the overall goal, since it appears to be another API that requires specific support from the app to use it. It doesn't appear to globally apply to all apps, including legacy ones. The solution I suggested is still the superior one. Perhaps MS will take the next step for their next OS rev.

Edit: Here's a good article - http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdn...7/07/NTFS/default.aspx
From some of the examples, specifically the one about shutting the machine off in the middle of a Windows update, and having the filesystem rollback to the last consistent state for that transaction, you can see the applicability of my example of having an application crash partway though updating a file, and corrupting the user's global filesystem data state.
The good part is that MS is working on this; the bad part is that they aren't applying it globally to apps yet, which is what really should be done, and have the executable images of apps that need special requirements to be specially marked. IOW, enable transactional filesystem operations by default, to protect against any app crashes having an effect on user data consistency.

I know that I've suffered from this problem for years and years, corrupted Mozilla data files, corrupted Free Agent newsreader stores, you name it.

They originally did this, but for a variety of reasons there was too much legacy issues. As we move forward more and more apps should be using the new api's.

 

[Scooby Doo]

Installed on another hard drive... same old problem. Then Problem Reports and Solution told me I needed Silicon Image SiL 0680 drivers, which was a bit odd. It said use update to get them, surprise, Update didn't have any new updates. Updating the drivers with device manager yielded nothing. Vista must be super picky about drivers and hardware, ugh.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Bill, from that same article:

What Happened to the Transacted Command Line?

If you were involved in the early betas for Windows Vista, you may recall seeing a transaction command available from the command line. This allowed an administrator to start a transaction from the command line and run an application, and then any file operations within that application would implicitly be transacted.

While testing application compatibility in Windows Vista, the team found that this implicit model was difficult for COM+ and managed developers to use safely. As a result, the model was changed to be opt-in and explicit to avoid this confusion. The downside to this change is that if you wish to use TxF in your app, your code will have to change to call the new APIs.

It sounds like they DID attempt to do what I suggested. Too bad they took that out, it would have been superb for many apps, most of which are not COM+ AFAIK.

 

[StopSign]

Originally posted by: Scooby Doo
Installed on another hard drive... same old problem. Then Problem Reports and Solution told me I needed Silicon Image SiL 0680 drivers, which was a bit odd. It said use update to get them, surprise, Update didn't have any new updates. Updating the drivers with device manager yielded nothing. Vista must be super picky about drivers and hardware, ugh.

You tried Googling that?

 

[soonerproud]

Originally posted by: Scooby Doo
Installed on another hard drive... same old problem. Then Problem Reports and Solution told me I needed Silicon Image SiL 0680 drivers, which was a bit odd. It said use update to get them, surprise, Update didn't have any new updates. Updating the drivers with device manager yielded nothing. Vista must be super picky about drivers and hardware, ugh.

If I am not mistaken, Vista has a new driver policy that requires certified drivers. Until the hardware manufacturer gets the drivers certified, Microsoft will not provide the drivers in Windows update.

Try going to the chipset makers site and check to see if they have Vista compatible drivers available.

 

[bsobel]

It sounds like they DID attempt to do what I suggested. Too bad they took that out, it would have been superb for many apps, most of which are not COM+ AFAIK.

Yes Larry, I know, thats why I mentioned they had compat issues (well that, and I know what some of the issues where and how some of the mini-filters where affected)

 

[bsobel]

If I am not mistaken, Vista has a new driver policy that requires certified drivers. Until the hardware manufacturer gets the drivers certified, Microsoft will not provide the drivers in Windows update.

That isn't new, its the same as XP. What is new is that V64 won't be default load unsigned drivers at all.

 

[soonerproud]

My bad.

That was what I was thinking of when I posted my earlier reply.

 

[trexpesto]

umm howabout I spend an afternoon on my day off looking up workarounds to get the machine to network with XP and install a dang printer. HP LaserJet 8000, very common. The driver was fine, it was vista that sucked. Plus she just got this brand new lappy with 2g RAM and a 7200 - the thing runs DOG SLOW. So far for me it's like the work of Linux with the ridiculous overhead of MS - price and RAM overhead. It's one thing for a free OS to have problems, but for 200 bucks or whatever Vista costs, really, they need to come correct.

PS: To get the Vista lappy to see the XP network, I had to install software on the XP machines! So much for true "backwards compatibility"