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  The big Windows 7 lie
Time: 00:07 EST/05:07 GMT | News Source: ComputerWorld | Posted By: Kenneth van Surksum

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols: You've read the early reviews with comments like Windows 7 is a big improvement over Vista and Windows 7 is wicked fast. Sounds great doesn't it? On closer inspection though Windows 7 M3 (Milestone 3) is being revealed as being just a "slightly tweaked version of Vista."

When I said recently that early Windows 7 reviews based on handpicked bribes, ah high-end laptops, to reviewers and bloggers could only give results that were not a lot different from those of a rigged demo I was more right than I knew. Randall Kennedy put the Windows 7 engine on a real test-bench and discovered that, at the kernel level, "When viewed side by side in Performance Monitor, Vista and Windows 7 were virtually indistinguishable."

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#1 By 1896 (207.244.165.105) at 11/12/2008 2:26:26 AM
Comparing an OS already at SP1 stage with another one in Alpha/Beta stage is, in practical terms, completely useless.
Everybody with even a minimum level of knowledge about the development cycle is aware that Alpha/Beta builds are:

Filled with debugging and other monitoring tools that slow the OS down

Not optimized for performance; this is something that is done at the end of the development cycle.

#2 By 3746 (72.12.161.38) at 11/12/2008 7:57:15 AM
the big windows 7 lie? That it is Vista R2 with a changed name? I mean of course it is - did they think they were writing a new OS from scratch?

#3 By 17855 (205.167.180.130) at 11/12/2008 8:36:58 AM
This story was pointless. The only thing the author did was create traffic to get click throughs to justify his blog. What a joke!

This post was edited by awiltfong on Wednesday, November 12, 2008 at 08:40.

#4 By 72426 (69.144.82.159) at 11/12/2008 9:08:05 AM
Vista was the major architectural change. PERIOD.

As for performance, Windows 7 in Alpha is showing to be faster and lighter on hardware by using some of the tricks that were put into Vista but time did allow them to be used throughout the OS.

For example, the WDDM was a major step forward from the 3D accelerlation and GPU virtualization and scheduling to the AERO composer. Windows 7 takes time to bring more of the things that can be done with the WDDM and AERO to the users. So more of what Vista brought to the NT line will be seen in Windows 7, instead of being all behind the scenes stuff with the exception of little things like Flip3d.

So with Windows 7, MS is taking time to bring forward some of the cool things Vista made possible into the hands of users, as the new UI changes in Explorer in Windows 7 are demonstrating.

The other myth here is that Vista is still slower than XP, and this is just not true. Vista SP1 is faster than any XP (SP1/SP2/SP3), in 99% of areas, including boot times and especially gaming where Vista is now showing a consistent lead in performance.

So even Windows 7 is not any faster than Vista SP1, this is not a bad thing, it is still faster than XP. However, look for Windows 7 to be lighter and faster in some areas, for example with Windows 7 services can run lighter (with a new event start state) saving on RAM, allowing Windows 7 to run well on hardware that is a little tight for Vista, while keeping all the 'extra' features Vista is running alive and well.

People that write crap like this need to be ignored, as they are anti-Windows and just want your ad revenue to push their agenda.


#5 By 8556 (12.206.195.4) at 11/12/2008 9:26:59 AM
"In case you haven't used Vista, that means you can expect Windows 7 performance to be lousy. " That's a highly ignorant comment.

#6 By 15406 (216.191.227.68) at 11/12/2008 10:50:56 AM
#4: The other myth here is that Vista is still slower than XP, and this is just not true. Vista SP1 is faster than any XP (SP1/SP2/SP3), in 99% of areas, including boot times and especially gaming where Vista is now showing a consistent lead in performance.

I'd love to see some data to back that up. I've only ever seen benchmarks that show pretty much the exact opposite of what you just said.

#5: How so? If you're an XP user who hasn't used Vista, then you're going to see a performance drop from XP to 7 just like XP to Vista. I picked up a new quad system 3 weeks ago with Vista and didn't wipe it in favour of XP. I've been using Vista exclusively for 3 weeks now and I find it feels slower on the new quad than XP was on my old HP dual-core.

#7 By 23275 (71.91.9.16) at 11/12/2008 11:16:01 AM
#6, Latch, ExtremeTech's Loyd Case did an entire series on it with Vista SP1 and more mature drivers - he concluded that Vista was faster in gaming and across the board in all other areas on the same hardware as compared to XP - pretty significant when one considers how much more Vista is doing than XP.

Clearly the ecosystem around Vista has matured as most professionals offered that it would. Equally, a little planning around one's baseline - as is also quite normal to do - allowed any builder to deliver better performance with Vista than they could with XP from day one. As I shared many times, it took us less effort and at lower cost than with any previous version of Windows. As anthonyspt points out, Win 7 will leverage the hard work done in Vista and take advantage of what the platform allows.

Regardless, both offer a safer, better and faster computing experience over XP on main stream hardware that has long since been common in the market.

#8 By 15406 (216.191.227.68) at 11/12/2008 11:38:02 AM
#7: I couldn't find what you were referring to, but is he the same Loyd Case that wrote the article "Why Windows 7 Will Suck Less Than Vista"? He apparently thinks Vista sucks, and believes Windows 7 will be better. I hope so. File copies take forever. Network file ops take forever. But my favourite Vista trick is trying to overwrite a large folder structure. No matter how many times you agree to the myriad Vista prompts, I cannot get it to move files & folders unless I do it one folder at a time. And even then, I have to manually delete the empty top-level folder which somehow always gets left behind. How they could screw up a move is baffling.

#9 By 28801 (65.90.202.10) at 11/12/2008 12:19:39 PM
#6: "I find it feels slower on the new quad than XP was on my old HP dual-core."

I couldn't disagree more! I realize that "Feel" is a subjective thing but the QUAD I just built is downright faster than any XP system I've experienced. I have not experienced any of the sluggishness you described in post #8 and I've copied and moved tons of folders between drives on my Vista machine as well as between Vista and networked machines. My prompts have diminished over the month or so since my box went live. Additionally, I have installed a lot of software and not seen the usual performance drag the XP experiences with a lot of apps. Finally, sleep mode on this monster that I built is as close as you will ever get to instant on.
Specs:
CASE - Antec Nine Hundred 900
Power Supply - Hiper Type R II 680 Watt
Memory - CORSAIR TW3X4G1600C9DHX 4GB PC3-12800+ (DDR3-1600+) DDR3
CPU - INTEL BX80569Q9550 Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83 GHz 1333 MHz Socket 775 2 x 6MB Desktop Processor
Motherboard - EVGA 132-CK-NF79-A1 nVidia nForce 790i Ultra SLI Core 2 Quad/Core 2 Extreme/Core 2 Duo/Pentium Socket 775 1600 MHz PC3-16000 (DDR3-2000) ATX
Video card - EVGA GeForce 9800 GT Superclocked Video Card - 512MB GDDR3, PCI Express 2.0, SLI Ready, (Dual Link) Dual DVI, HDTV
Hard Disk - HITACHI Deskstar 7K1000 0A35154 750GB SATA 7200 RPM 32MB Hard Drive Bulk

#10 By 15406 (216.191.227.68) at 11/12/2008 12:37:45 PM
#9: I also like the improved sleep. There are some things I've noticed that are faster, such as the spam filtering in Thunderbird being a LOT faster than on the old box. However, basic system IO seems to "think" too much before doing anything. I can get used to the performance, but the glitchy stuff (like folder overwrites) are a colossal pain in the ass. I didn't relish manually moving 30+ folders (with 4 Vista prompts per move) instead of doing it in one transaction.

#11 By 3746 (72.12.161.38) at 11/12/2008 12:49:59 PM
I have done testing for CAD/CAM systems in both XP (32/64) and Vista (32/64). Given the same hardware I have really found no major differences in both synthetic and real world benchmarks. The majority of Vista's performance issues were driver related or running it on a system below minimum specifications (meaning real minimum specs not the ones that MS said). By the time of SP1 the driver and performance issues had largely been resolved for Vista. What is interesting is that people forget that XP went through the same maturing process. When it was released it was slower then 98 and there were plenty of people screaming that they would never upgrade. I wonder how many of those are still running 98?

Also, Vista just feels faster because of the background process that are running. Superfetch makes a huge difference in the system feeling faster. I have a Quad with Vista 64 and 8GB of RAM and it feels faster than XP (dual booting) on the same system. It boots faster then XP and best of all the sleep function works extremely well on Vista so I hardly reboot other then for updates. Same goes for my laptop dual booting Vista 32bit and ubuntu 8.10 32bit. I have struggled with the sleep function on ubuntu but Vista's always works flawlessly. Ubuntu just feels sluggish in use compared to Vista.

#12 By 8556 (12.206.195.4) at 11/12/2008 1:20:48 PM
Latch #5: "Lousy performance" is subjective. I do not perceive lousy performance on Vista on any machine that I use, or have worked on. I do, however, shrink the restore partition to a fixed size of 3-GB rather then use the default 15% of the hard drive size. I also turn off all fades, slides and animations. Vista tweaked is better but was never lousy. If someone buys one of NewEgg's $299 Compaq Business PC's with Vista Business, but only 512-MB of RAM, they will perceive poor performance. Spend another $20 to go to 2-GB of RAM and suddenly you have a snappy machine, with downgrade rights if you still aren't happy.

Latch #10: I agree that "protecting" folders such as Windows/Web/Wallpaper from a download or copy from a USB drive, but allowing the files to be copied to and then recopied from the User folders to where I wanted them in the first place is a pain in the ass.

#13 By 23275 (71.91.9.16) at 11/12/2008 2:39:57 PM
@9, Sweet rig!

#14 By 143 (216.205.223.146) at 11/12/2008 3:26:03 PM
Is Windows 7 a tweaked/fixed version of Vista?

#15 By 72426 (69.144.82.159) at 11/12/2008 3:48:25 PM
#6 Latch

The data is not hard to find if you actually use your eyes and a search engine...

Lets cover several areas even, not just gaming...

http://lifehacker.com/5082336/windows-7-vs-xp-and-vista-boot-time-benchmarks-updated
http://rainrecording.co.uk/vista/performance
http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2007/1/2/6453
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/juha/2070
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/windows_vista_aero_glass_performance/page3.asp
http://www.tomsgames.com/us/2007/09/18/dx10_part3/page3.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/xp-vs-vista,1531-11.html

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2302500,00.asp

Notice that the last one is specifically gaming comparing Vista SP1 vs XP SP3, and Vista wins all but one test.

There is a reason all serious gaming and hardware sites have moved to Vista for benchmarking, as well Vista caught up to XP around the summer of 07 there was no need to keep using XP as a baseline.

Vista performance is better than XP at 1-2GB. PERIOD. And with Windows 7, that RAM range should shift as Windows 7 can run lighter with services only running on the fly and a few other tricks that come from the Vista platform and a few years of innovation.

There are some cool things BEYOND Vista concepts in Windows 7 architecture, and anyone can go to Channel9.com to see what these are, and why Windows 7 won't be the initial marketing train wreck people saw Vista as.

#16 By 72426 (69.144.82.159) at 11/12/2008 8:28:05 PM
#12

This is more about File Security than protecting anything. People in the Windows world, especially coming from the non-secure Win9X era don't get file system level security and so this stuff pops up as a WTF instead of them going, oh, it is keeping its original permissions and if I just change the security on these or use a different move/copy method they permissions won't follow the files individiually.

In a way, this is an education process, and although MS tries to hide FS security from average users as much as possible, it is something that is time basic users start to understand and can manage more easily.

#17 By 15406 (99.240.65.32) at 11/12/2008 9:14:33 PM
#15: Thanks. I'll check those links out.

#16: If I had a file permissions problem, I would expect to get some kind of 'access denied' error.

#18 By 16797 (65.95.24.195) at 11/12/2008 10:04:24 PM
#12 "I also turn off all fades, slides and animations."

Why do you do that? If your video card is not the crappiest one, it should handle those tasks without any problems. It is actually better to leave Aero turned on, because GPU, and not CPU, will handle almost all display tasks. It's a joke for you GPU to do it and that way you get your CPU to do other stuff..

#19 By 8556 (12.210.39.82) at 11/13/2008 5:29:36 PM
#18: You know not of which you speak. Try it and tell me that your machine is not more responsive by using fewer CPU and GPU cycles.

#20 By 3653 (65.80.181.153) at 11/13/2008 6:21:43 PM
anthonyspt, with 41 posts... i think it may be possible that you aren't overly familiar with latch.

Don't expect him to reply (unless he reads my own comment here). He's a troll of the worst type. Likely a severe loser in the physical world, he overcompensates by trolling a windows enthusiast site and taking the counter position in all discussions. In his marble-sized mind, this makes him popular in a way that the girls in high school never realized he could be. Vindication is his, as he types out his logicless replies night after night... always wanting to be loved and never any closer to realizing he's looking in the wrong places.

;-) I crack myself up. Any collatorial laughter you may get, is just extra.

#21 By 23275 (71.91.9.16) at 11/13/2008 8:37:12 PM
#20, I was thinking that yelling at a rock is more productive than trying to engage Latch in a meaningful debate.

#22 By 15406 (216.191.227.68) at 11/14/2008 8:24:37 AM
#20: I think what you were trying to say was that I'm not a microbot who fawns over Microsoft. I don't pledge fealty to Microsoft. I don't take communion from Saint Ketchum of Redmond. I prefer to think instead of blindly following the AW herd. I don't spin to cover MS's missteps and bad deeds. You're one to talk, too. I don't run away and hide under parkkker's skirt when things get hot. This site needs some balance with guys like you, ketchum & parkkker constantly blowing MS sunshine up everyone's ass.

#21: I was thinking that yelling at a rock is more productive than trying to convince Latch that everything about Microsoft is totally wonderful in every way.

Fixed that for you.

#23 By 23275 (71.91.9.16) at 11/14/2008 11:27:45 AM
#22, No Latch, that is not it at all....

My positions are pretty sober - they have to be - I win, lose, or draw based upon the decisions I make; I sign the front sides of the checks that move through my company. There is no way I could, or would sell products and services based upon Microsoft software if they were not good for our customers and could not be made to work well for them.

What I have continually said is that Microsoft software allows us, or any full-service tech provider like us, to build reliable, manageable information solutions for people and businesses. I've been candid that like any successful effort, that it takes planning and effort. I have also stated that the amount of applied effort is "reasonable" and therefore profitable.

Microsoft and the ecosystem built around it is more complete and in practical terms, far more open and accessible than competing products. Servers, Clients, Tools, Services - they are all there and densely populate with other partners adding yet more tools and means to get things done for customers. Platforms and the entire ecosystem continue to improve and the opportunities presented grow accordingly.

#24 By 92283 (142.32.208.232) at 11/14/2008 11:29:27 AM
LyinLatch is one reason to never allow Linux in your datacenter.

The adherents tend to be foul-mouthed demented idiots.

I firmly believe they would sabotage any Windows box they were allowed near.

#25 By 15406 (216.191.227.68) at 11/14/2008 12:33:01 PM
#23: Well yes, it is. You're the biggest MS cheerleader on the planet. I've never seen anyone defend Vista with such vigour. When I want objective information on Microsoft, I pretty much disregard everything you say. For years, you went on and on about how anyone complaining about Vista was either stupid, a liar, or part of the world-wide anti-Vista media cabal. Two years later, everyone (except maybe you) now admits that Vista was, in fact, a dog at launch. Now you're doing it all again with 7 and how wonderful it is.

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