Another Vista Rant

[flexy]

In the series of rants against Vista, here just something:

Under XP i never had the problem with system-restore points purged, in XP i just had system-restore active and thought its the best thing since sliced bread.

Now, with the "improved" vista i have problems left and right, this is in conjunctions with VSS (Volume Shadow Copy), restore points, shadow copies.

System-Restores have become EXTREMELY unreliable, especially with defraggers like perfectdisk, diskeeper etc...it happens that system-restores get purged all the time. This also happens with any defragmentation at boot time which tends to delete any shadow copies and system restore points.

I already had a few crashes where i really NEEDED my system restore points...seemed that the repair-attempts (chkdsk etc.) at boot destroyed them...BUMMER....so this has become extremely unreliable.

The same with a NUMBER of backup programs, big names like Acronis TI, Genie Backup, You name it. If you look in event-viewer using any of those imaging/backup programs...i sometimes see problems popping up having to do with VSS Volume Shadow Copy...so right now i dont even know whether my backups are already really 1:1 copies of my partitions.

Some backup-programs just righteous refuse to work right at all or lack certain features, at least under Vista X64.

Its CONSTANTLY that what is *supposed* to be enhancements and more security and safety in reality translates into NON RELIABILTY and problems. The OS got more complex - but the higher complexity introduces incompatibility and problems here and there.

Just another Vista rant.

(Oh, btw. did you notice that Vista has a bug, NOT allowing it to wake up from stand-by from within a scheduled task. I just found a workaround and might post this at a later time. This is especially handy for eg. scheduling backups, put Vista to sleep and then wake up the PC for backup and let it go to sleep again.)

G.

 

[Tempered81]

Man I friggin' hate how pathetic vista performs after spending so much time in development. Although, k I have found a couple of bugs in XP SP3 too.

 

[soonerproud]

Originally posted by: flexy
System-Restores have become EXTREMELY unreliable, especially with defraggers like perfectdisk, diskeeper etc...it happens that system-restores get purged all the time. This also happens with any defragmentation at boot time which tends to delete any shadow copies and system restore points.

Sometimes it is best to just stick to what came with Vista for defragging. Using third party defraggers is not even necessary any more.

 

[nerp]

People are OCD about fragmentation and optimization whizzbang apps, etc.

 

[flexy]

Originally posted by: soonerproud

Originally posted by: flexy
System-Restores have become EXTREMELY unreliable, especially with defraggers like perfectdisk, diskeeper etc...it happens that system-restores get purged all the time. This also happens with any defragmentation at boot time which tends to delete any shadow copies and system restore points.

Sometimes it is best to just stick to what came with Vista for defragging. Using third party defraggers is not even necessary any more.

i am actually thinking about it. I just like how DK keeps seldom used file on the end of my disk. In the last DK version they even disabled boot-time defrag, and i-faast is at "pending" for several days now. "Due to incompatibility with Vista SP1".

 

[13Gigatons]

I turned of system restore and vss and just use Acronis True Image. I'm using Vista 32 and don't have any problems.

PS: You may want to try Windows Server 2008 it's definitely quicker then Vista and you can run it for 240 days for free.

 

[Continuity28]

Originally posted by: 13Gigatons
PS: You may want to try Windows Server 2008 it's definitely quicker then Vista and you can run it for 240 days for free.

Quicker in what ways?

 

[flexy]

not too fond on Acronis TI..but i have it running now. The problem is restores are incredible slow....the only way to restore (FILE-restore, NOT partitions!) in reasonable time is mounting a Acronis archive as volume and then use explorer to copy data over. I spent a LOT of time creating a bootable VistaPE CD with Acronis on it which is able to mount volumes.

this is just ANOTHER thing to add to my rant: There are huge incompatibilities with current backup-programs and Vista VSS, otherwise i would probably use Genie Backup Manager. Acronis TI from rescue CD is a joke, i already posted on their forum....it would take me 20hrs+ (!!!) to restore 300GB data.

Disabling VSS would be an option - BUT...isnt it, well "ironic" that due to incompatibilities we would be forced to turn off VSS and therefore system restores, ONE of the best features which never made any troubles under XP.

Add2: Filecopying within explorer/vista (even under SP1) really wants to make me cry...still WAY waster than using Acronis...but 20 mins for FSX folder (70gb) and another 20-30 for my xplane folder..and this from physical HD1 to physical HD2.....and Vista is known for filecopies not the fastest.

I have to get some 3rd party tool just to get to reasonable speeds restoring my data.

 

[13Gigatons]

Originally posted by: Continuity28

Originally posted by: 13Gigatons
PS: You may want to try Windows Server 2008 it's definitely quicker then Vista and you can run it for 240 days for free.

Quicker in what ways?

It's about 20% faster but generally more responsive as well. Windows just pop open and it feels more tweaked then Vista SP1. Others have also said that apps that didn't run or run well in vista would run on server 2k8.

The server branch always seems to be a lot more responsive then the desktop version.

PS: The only downside is that there is no media center....which I don't use.

 

[flexy]

13G, interesting.

 

[stash]

It's about 20% faster

Do you have some data to back that up?

 

[PhreePhly]

Originally posted by: flexy
In the series of rants against Vista, here just something:

Under XP i never had the problem with system-restore points purged, in XP i just had system-restore active and thought its the best thing since sliced bread.

Now, with the "improved" vista i have problems left and right, this is in conjunctions with VSS (Volume Shadow Copy), restore points, shadow copies.

System-Restores have become EXTREMELY unreliable, especially with defraggers like perfectdisk, diskeeper etc...it happens that system-restores get purged all the time. This also happens with any defragmentation at boot time which tends to delete any shadow copies and system restore points.

I already had a few crashes where i really NEEDED my system restore points...seemed that the repair-attempts (chkdsk etc.) at boot destroyed them...BUMMER....so this has become extremely unreliable.

The same with a NUMBER of backup programs, big names like Acronis TI, Genie Backup, You name it. If you look in event-viewer using any of those imaging/backup programs...i sometimes see problems popping up having to do with VSS Volume Shadow Copy...so right now i dont even know whether my backups are already really 1:1 copies of my partitions.

Some backup-programs just righteous refuse to work right at all or lack certain features, at least under Vista X64.

Its CONSTANTLY that what is *supposed* to be enhancements and more security and safety in reality translates into NON RELIABILTY and problems. The OS got more complex - but the higher complexity introduces incompatibility and problems here and there.

Just another Vista rant.

(Oh, btw. did you notice that Vista has a bug, NOT allowing it to wake up from stand-by from within a scheduled task. I just found a workaround and might post this at a later time. This is especially handy for eg. scheduling backups, put Vista to sleep and then wake up the PC for backup and let it go to sleep again.)

G.

I guess i must have a magical Vista install. On my 2.0 Ghz Core 2Duo lappy, I run Vista 32 with restore active, Diskeeper and Acronis true image 11. Not a single issue with shadow copies or restores. I've grabbed previous versions of change files using the VSS service, mounted Acronis images to grab an old file (images stored on an external USB2 disk).

I have my hard drive partioned into 2 drives, a system drive and a data drive. I use Acronis to create daily differential backups of my data drive (a full image with 4 differentials, and back to a full image) and i create a weekly Image of my system drive. I have restored from a restore point once, have re-imaged due to a logon issue (i erased certificates that made login impossible) using the acronis system drive image all without issue.

I have Diskeeper running only on my system drive, as defragmenting my data drive tends to create larger diffrential backup sets, and the defrag is more for boot time performance. However, the more I read about defragging in general, i may just remove Diskeeper and forget it. I will just manually defrag every 6 months or so. It just doesn't help that much unless your drives are greater than 80% full. I am using the latest DK with VSS support. I started with Acronis 10 and have upgraded to Acronis 11, with no issues, however, if i could do it again, I would have stayed with Acronis 10 as 11 doesn't offer that much new to me.

PhreePhly

 

[Pabster]

WEAK, for sure. 0/10.

VSS is not a bad thing. Software just needs to be rewritten and compatible with it. Vista has a fantastic disk imager built right in, and it has no issues with that stuff.

 

[flexy]

PhreePly, almost the same setup here.

My grief with Acronis is "only" the extremely slow restore times. I also had the latest version of DK, i just can tell you that i had my MFT trashed twice..and its already the second time in a week that i palyed back 300Gb of data since to corrupted filesystem. Also....when i had a very serious crash a few weeks ago which ironically purged all my restores - respective the chskdsk or whatever i did following the crash destroyed the them, when i badly needed them

Pabster, well not really a constructive reply Although i have to admit i never used the Vista Imager. Its an interesting option since there's always a ready to go Vista Recovery CD....and Acronis 11 (talking about the file-wise restore) is incredible, incredible slow. I even made a bootable VistaPE CD now with a working full Acronis plugin..but the file-restore times are still extremely slow.

It comes down to a very, very simple observation:

Using Vista X64 i see and read interesting reviews, and then i want to try this or that software. Ane even more often than fewer it happens that a certsin software just doesnt WORK. In the case of Genie Backup Manager i started the software and wanted to do a system recovery...i got some related VSS error message where further googling revealed it has to do with some incompatibilty w/ Vista.

Its NOT that i get paid ranting against Vista

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: 13Gigatons

Originally posted by: Continuity28

Originally posted by: 13Gigatons
PS: You may want to try Windows Server 2008 it's definitely quicker then Vista and you can run it for 240 days for free.

Quicker in what ways?

It's about 20% faster but generally more responsive as well. Windows just pop open and it feels more tweaked then Vista SP1. Others have also said that apps that didn't run or run well in vista would run on server 2k8.

The server branch always seems to be a lot more responsive then the desktop version.

PS: The only downside is that there is no media center....which I don't use.

It isnt the first time I've heard than server 08 is "faster" than Vista, but I've never seen any hard or even soft numbers to back it up. Being that they run on basically the same codebase, its pretty hard for me to believe theres something intrinsically faster about server 08. I'm sure it's far more to do with different default settings (tuned for a server) and lack of preinstalled crapware than any actual kernel improvement.

Despite the fact that it breaks the ability to install service packs, I've had a lot of success with vlite and Vista on my many year old 1.2ghz celeron/1gb PC2100 system. I finally had the opportunity to dual boot a vlited Vista SP1 vs. an nlited XP SP3 on the same system, and I have to say, they both run fantastic. The only difference I really see between the two is that the XP explorer is slightly faster to update, but the then again, the Vista explorer is much more functional. Other than that, you'd never think Vista was "slow" when comparing the two, and this is an OLD laptop.

 

[stash]

It isnt the first time I've heard than server 08 is "faster" than Vista, but I've never seen any hard or even soft numbers to back it up. Being that they run on basically the same codebase, its pretty hard for me to believe theres something intrinsically faster about server 08. I'm sure it's far more to do with different default settings (tuned for a server) and lack of preinstalled crapware than any actual kernel improvement.

Don't be so pessimistic! I'm sure someone will show us how 2008 is 20% faster than Vista, any day now.

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: stash

It isnt the first time I've heard than server 08 is "faster" than Vista, but I've never seen any hard or even soft numbers to back it up. Being that they run on basically the same codebase, its pretty hard for me to believe theres something intrinsically faster about server 08. I'm sure it's far more to do with different default settings (tuned for a server) and lack of preinstalled crapware than any actual kernel improvement.

Don't be so pessimistic! I'm sure someone will show us how 2008 is 20% faster than Vista, any day now.

http://wastingtimewithmikeanda...s-23-the-ram-of-vista/

http://exo-blog.blogspot.com/2008/03/windows-2008-vista-done-right.html

http://www.itwire.com/content/view/17140/1103/1/0/

Well, here's what a quick google search shows up. What I've still yet to find is an explanation behind it that isnt purely speculative.

A quote:

"Being a server oriented operating system, many of the consumer desktop features have been turned off by default, with options such as the Sidebar, Games Explorer and Windows Media Center not included with the OS, while other features such as Superfetch being turned off, and the OS set to favour background tasks instead of foreground application performance."

Naturally, thats to be expected, and probably accounts for a great deal of the difference. What would really interest me most is a benchmark where server 2008 and Vista were configured to be as identical as possible.

If it does turn out to be some sort of significant under the hood optimization and not just different configs, there's always the chance that those changes can be patched into Vista.

 

[toadeater]

Originally posted by: BD2003
http://wastingtimewithmikeanda...s-23-the-ram-of-vista/

http://exo-blog.blogspot.com/2008/03/windows-2008-vista-done-right.html

http://www.itwire.com/content/view/17140/1103/1/0/

1. It was Server 2008 tested against pre-SP1 Vista. That's like testing Vista SP1 vs. pre-SP1 Vista. Google the benchmarks of Vista SP1 being "up to 20% faster." Coincidence?

2. That is an article about the original unproven claim that Server 2008 is faster. It itself offers no evidence of its own.

Whoever started this Server 2008 is faster claim did it without providing any evidence. I forget the name of the website, it was some guy's blog, an MS employee no less! I think the guy should be fired. Unless this was some kind of pathetic attempt by Steve Ballmer at guerrilla advertizing.

EDIT: Here you go, here's who started all this nonsense, without offering any proof...

http://blogs.msdn.com/vijaysk/...-super-desktop-os.aspx

http://www.win2008workstation.com/wordpress/