Windows Vista Update: RC1/5728 Preview
by Ryan Smith on October 3, 2006 4:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
Conclusion
While we'll hold back on any final opinions on Vista until we have a shipping version, at this point it's becoming increasingly unlikely we'll see any more significant changes between now and when Vista is finished next month. So what we say now we'll likely be saying again.
At this point most of Vista is perfectly fine. Everything works, all functionality is enabled, and driver support is looking good. If anyone had to pick up Vista and use it today, they would be able to do so once they got over the initial shock of just how different it is compared to XP. For doing so, they would be rewarded with a lot of new functionality that XP can't offer, though other operating systems like Mac OS X have offered many of the features for years now.
As the saying goes, it's the little things that matter. Vista isn't perfect - no operating system is - and while we could pick apart things we still don't like about XP 5 years later, Vista's problems are more pressing. Some of the things that Vista does are flat-out quirky and make little sense, and User Account Controls are still going to come across as combative to enthusiasts and other similar user groups. General users will be fine, but as is often the case general users end up adopting some enthusiast practices, and if that includes disarming parts of UAC, it will significantly undermine the security gains of Vista.
Where performance ends up is also a concern. Our general performance numbers are a mixed bag compared to XP, which turns out is a good thing since it would imply that overall Vista is no slower than XP for performance-critical applications. Memory and disk space usage are up, and that's an inevitability of progress, but most recent machines should be no worse off with Vista than XP as far as general usage goes if our numbers reflect the larger whole. This is something we'll investigate much more in depth once we have the final version of Vista.
Unfortunately, gaming performance is still lagging behind, heavily at times, and this is troubling. Gamers will no doubt stay away from Vista if the final version and final video drivers continue to underperform, but there's also the larger issue of how computers are becoming increasingly reliant on the GPU for general tasks, something Microsoft itself is pushing with the new video threading systems for Vista and forthcoming DirectX 10-class video hardware. A large video performance gap could or could not be a problem for non-gamers moving to Vista, but it's too early to tell.
So where does that leave us then? If Microsoft continues to stay on schedule, they will have a shipping version of Vista ready within a month, though retail consumers will be waiting until 2007 to get their hands on it. Whether it will really be ready to replace XP at that time remains up in the air. Early adopters will likely bite the bullet, but many people will probably prefer waiting for the inevitable Service Pack.
While we'll hold back on any final opinions on Vista until we have a shipping version, at this point it's becoming increasingly unlikely we'll see any more significant changes between now and when Vista is finished next month. So what we say now we'll likely be saying again.
At this point most of Vista is perfectly fine. Everything works, all functionality is enabled, and driver support is looking good. If anyone had to pick up Vista and use it today, they would be able to do so once they got over the initial shock of just how different it is compared to XP. For doing so, they would be rewarded with a lot of new functionality that XP can't offer, though other operating systems like Mac OS X have offered many of the features for years now.
As the saying goes, it's the little things that matter. Vista isn't perfect - no operating system is - and while we could pick apart things we still don't like about XP 5 years later, Vista's problems are more pressing. Some of the things that Vista does are flat-out quirky and make little sense, and User Account Controls are still going to come across as combative to enthusiasts and other similar user groups. General users will be fine, but as is often the case general users end up adopting some enthusiast practices, and if that includes disarming parts of UAC, it will significantly undermine the security gains of Vista.
Where performance ends up is also a concern. Our general performance numbers are a mixed bag compared to XP, which turns out is a good thing since it would imply that overall Vista is no slower than XP for performance-critical applications. Memory and disk space usage are up, and that's an inevitability of progress, but most recent machines should be no worse off with Vista than XP as far as general usage goes if our numbers reflect the larger whole. This is something we'll investigate much more in depth once we have the final version of Vista.
Unfortunately, gaming performance is still lagging behind, heavily at times, and this is troubling. Gamers will no doubt stay away from Vista if the final version and final video drivers continue to underperform, but there's also the larger issue of how computers are becoming increasingly reliant on the GPU for general tasks, something Microsoft itself is pushing with the new video threading systems for Vista and forthcoming DirectX 10-class video hardware. A large video performance gap could or could not be a problem for non-gamers moving to Vista, but it's too early to tell.
So where does that leave us then? If Microsoft continues to stay on schedule, they will have a shipping version of Vista ready within a month, though retail consumers will be waiting until 2007 to get their hands on it. Whether it will really be ready to replace XP at that time remains up in the air. Early adopters will likely bite the bullet, but many people will probably prefer waiting for the inevitable Service Pack.
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flexy - Tuesday, October 3, 2006 - link
mem-usage is a URBAN MYTH :)You can check for yourself, and i did too. DWM, the new windows management uses SOME memory, comparable to Explorer...but then it does new 3d fancy stuff and similiar. Of course, more features need more memory.
You COULD always disable and tweak-down stuff in Vista, as well as you can in XP....HOWEVER i'd say 2GB for Vista would be perfect and 1GB (as i have on XP Pro right now) is a little tight. *IF* you go vista then you of course also want to take advantage of its fetaures, right ? Otherwise you could as well stay with XP..or even get 98 "to save memory" :)
But its NOT the case that the memory usage of Vista is SOOO over the roof as some people suggest..it's just not true.
Drexial - Sunday, October 8, 2006 - link
its not really a myth... those features that are unessesary mostly install by default... and unless you know what your doing (which i might add the new windows is even LESS user friendly) then the memory will remain taken up and what should have run without any hang ups on 1 gig now has you concidering 2 gigs would be better. as little a cost that is, the average user isnt going to need half the crap that vista adds and just makes those that dont need to get a C+ certifacation on computers will be even more lost. Windows isnt suposed to be a prosumer operating system. its supose to be an easy to use way for your software to work for you. Vista is like the Mini with 6 airbags... while it sounds better its just a gimmick. i do understand that there may have been some nessesary upgrades to the system. they just packed it with what ever crap they could think of.jonp - Wednesday, October 4, 2006 - link
Wow, what folks are willing to consider normal today. If someone would have told you even just 5 years ago that the OS would require 2 billion+ (2,147,483,648) bytes of main memory, what would folks have said? And now it is considered just dandy? Even "bloat" doesn't adequately describe where OS’s and applications are headed. Big programming teams with less pride in craft left these days I guess.noxipoo - Wednesday, October 4, 2006 - link
the price of progress. i'd rather move forward than backwards, price of memory has gone down and features have gone up. having so much memory will only limit progress.ChronoReverse - Tuesday, October 3, 2006 - link
A lot of people are probably including the cache inadvertantly.MS should report only memory being actively used and rename the cache to TURBOMEMORY (TM)
ChronoReverse - Tuesday, October 3, 2006 - link
There's a x86 version and that will be the version you'll want to install at this point.All the manufacturers STILL haven't gotten on the ball with 64bit drivers so if anyone tells you Vista runs fine (it does), they're using the x86 version.
yxalitis - Tuesday, October 3, 2006 - link
WRONGTime to check the facts, X64 drivers for XP work in Vista RC1, so if you already use XP x64, as I do, it's a no-brainer. I have all my hardware fully supported by X64 drivers!
RMSe17 - Wednesday, October 4, 2006 - link
I doubt that the majority of hardware that works in WindowsXP with a 32bit driver has a working 64 bit counterpart. There are products from Windows 2000 era that work in XP, made by companies that are no longer around, or no longer support those products. Until there is a 64bit wrapper for 32bit drivers, those devices will be unusable.ChronoReverse - Tuesday, October 3, 2006 - link
And the driver situation for x64 XP... still sucks compared to x86. So my point stands.ss284 - Tuesday, October 3, 2006 - link
No matter how much the final version improves in the next month or so, its still nice to know that the xp->vista launch will be much smoother than the 98/me->xp launch, as far as software and hardware compatibility goes.On the other hand, the 98 -> xp upgrade was probably a much bigger improvement in terms of features and general os design when compared to xp -> vista.