Bye-Bye WIN VISTA (too bad)

[C1]

Bought a Fujitsu A6110 notebook computer (2Ghz Core 2 Duo, 2GB Ram, 200GBHDD). Comes with VISTA and for the last several weeks I have been evaluating it. This computer is supposed to be an integrated unit with software applications tailored by Fujitsu to work with the VISTA operating system all of which are intended to work with the chosen hardware suite. The conclusion Ive come to is that it is a "too hard to do" for anybody to get everything working together properly when using VISTA. The issue is that either the OS has bugs and/or the architecture is such that applications developers cant seem to do a good job implementing code that runs well in VISTA OS.

Im going back to XP. It has taken me years to develop an ensemble of software that works together wonderfully (responsively & reliably). Say what you want, but Ive done all I am able & willing to to accommodate VISTA (turned off UAC, maximized performance options [ie, aero glass set = off & minimize use of graphics/windows effects] , no wall paper, screen savers or even system restore, power option set to full). (Also this is not my uneducated/defective installation of VISTA that is involved here. I have to assume that this is the best job Fujitsu could do with it.) You can have your crappy sound & jerky video with occasional video frame tearing coming from the included PowerDvD - be my guest....leave me out.....I dont need it. Maybe I'll revisit (reinstall) VISTA in a couple years, but right now Im not even interested in trying to do a dual boot.

VISTA acts like there's too much internal overhead ongoing in the OS. There is too much delay in responding to keyboard actions (eg, spacebar press is supposed to pause video; works instantly in XP but can take from one to three seconds with VISTA). In VISTA sometimes when clicking on a window object the cursor will stick to the window object for two or three seconds (very Commodore 64 like) or the system responds as if it were asleep when clicking on an action object (eg, click on a shortcut to initiate a program). Add all of this on top of the fact that I have to replace my current versions of Partition Commander, True Image, NERO, Drive Shield & God only knows about ROXIO Creator, Adobe PE, Corel Applications & the many other pieces of software Ive assembled over the years which I havent tred to install yet. So far as what Ive seen, replacing these applications is just asking for trouble (like the newer PowerDvD that came with the new computer - it's too hard to code something that can work well with this OS.)


================

Worldwide News and Product Reviews
?The latest in tech news and hot product reviews.?
by Charles Carr
Vista's Performance Anxiety
When Microsoft's Windows Vista took center stage earlier this year,
and observers noted that it seemed to run significantly slower than the
company's previous OS, Windows XP, it was assumed that the
performance hiccups would be addressed in Vista's first major update,
Service Pack 1 (SP1).
But, according to Suzanne Tindal over at CNET, "New tests have
revealed that Windows XP with the beta Service Pack 3 has twice the
performance of Vista, even with its long-awaited Service Pack 1. When
Vista with the Service Pack 1 (SP1) beta was put through benchmark
testing by researchers at Florida-based software development
company Devil Mountain Software, the improvement was not
overwhelming, leaving the latest Windows iteration outshined by its
predecessor."According to the tests, which included creating a compound document
and supporting workbooks and presentation materials, SP1-powered
Vista took more than 80 seconds to complete tasks that XP with the
SP3 beta finished in just 35 seconds.It gets worse: "Vista's performance with the service pack increased less than 2 percent compared to performance without SP1," notes Tindal,
"much lower than XP's SP3 improvement of 10 percent."
According to the exo.performance.network research staff, which also
ran tests, "SP1 provides no measurable relief to users saddled with
sub-par performance under Vista. It seems clear that the hoped-for
performance fixes that Microsoft has been hinting at never
materialized. Vista + SP1 is no faster than Vista.
"Bottom line: If you've been disappointed with the performance of
Windows Vista to date, get used to it. SP1 is simply not the panacea
that many predicted. In the end, it's Vista's architecture?not a lack of
tuning or bug fixes?that makes it perform so poorly on systems that
were 'barn-burners' under Windows XP."
In response to the tests, a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement
that, although the company understood the interest in the service
packs, they are "still in development" and will continue to evolve before
their release.
"If SP1 does not evolve sufficiently," adds Tindal, "it could be another
setback for Vista, with many businesses waiting to adopt the operating
system until the service pack is released. A year after its launch, only
13 percent of businesses have adopted Vista, according to a survey of
IT professionals."
Microsoft had originally set a deadline of Jan. 31, 2007 to allow PC
vendors to continue to sell XP on new PCs, but manufacturer and
consumer pressure has forced the company to extend that deadline
until June.

 

[ChronoReverse]

Gee, I wonder why VLC and MPC both instantly pause when I press space. Lazy programmers for crappy companies blaming Vista instead of fixing their problems are your problem

 

[stash]

This computer is supposed to be an integrated unit with software applications tailored by Fujitsu to work with the VISTA operating system all of which are intended to work with the chosen hardware suite

hahahahahahahaha!!

Do a clean install without any of those applications "tailored" by Fujitsu and see how it runs.

 

[C1]

Does anyone know why PowerDvD doesnt allow use of hardware acceleration (check box turns gray/unchecked when playing a flick). 965 chipset is supposed to have Clear Video implemented for this purpose or is this just more bad/inadequate software.

 

[Cl1ckm3]

making a thread to just say you didnt have the hardware to run vista and are going back to XP is rather pointless as i doubt anyone really cares what OS some random poster from god knows where is using. thats what you get for buying a cheap sweatshop brand like fujistsu in the first place, assmbled in tokyo with cheap parts made in china and taiwan *good choice there* much less it being a notebook. you'd be better off running a light version of Linux if you need all your hardware resources open.

i got 6 gigs of ram, rummaging through vista and opening apps is instantanious. thats with dreamscene, windowblinds and objectdock running. then agian, i built my computer with high end parts made by adult sweatshop workers instead of 12 yr old 🙂

 

[C1]

99% of new notebook computers available on the market have VISTA as OS &
nearly all of them feature the IGP & 2Gb ram. Since you say that you built your computer then it appears that your comparing a desktop to a notebook. (Also Ill bet my bottom dollar that your using an Intel chipset & that most of those other expensive parts were made overseas in the same factories.)

In any event, youve just confirmed what I concluded....mainly that I need to fly with XP. In addition, notebook computers, in general, will not be at the hardware level necessary to run VISTA at quality level until perhaps two more years (ie, two generations more of advancement in the hardware especially the graphics capability).

====

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: C1
99% of new notebook computers available on the market have VISTA as OS &
nearly all of them feature the IGP & 2Gb ram. Since you say that you built your computer then it appears that your comparing a desktop to a notebook. (Also Ill bet my bottom dollar that your using an Intel chipset & that most of those other expensive parts were made overseas in the same factories.)

In any event, youve just confirmed what I concluded....mainly that I need to fly with XP. In addition, notebook computers, in general, will not be at the hardware level necessary to run VISTA at quality level until perhaps two more years (ie, two generations more of advancement in the hardware especially the graphics capability).

====

My Dell Vostro I received lastweek was supposed to have 2GB but they were giving free upgrade to 3GB,also had 8600m GT for video,Conroe 2 (2ghz),as to OS I had the choice,went with Vista HP ,it more then flies 🙂,I did uninstall the Mcafee Security bloatware.

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: C1
99% of new notebook computers available on the market have VISTA as OS &
nearly all of them feature the IGP & 2Gb ram. Since you say that you built your computer then it appears that your comparing a desktop to a notebook. (Also Ill bet my bottom dollar that your using an Intel chipset & that most of those other expensive parts were made overseas in the same factories.)

In any event, youve just confirmed what I concluded....mainly that I need to fly with XP. In addition, notebook computers, in general, will not be at the hardware level necessary to run VISTA at quality level until perhaps two more years (ie, two generations more of advancement in the hardware especially the graphics capability).

====

Absolutely ridiculous. My "old" 1.83GHz CoreDuo MacBook (2GB, 5400rpm HD) runs Vista perfectly.

As a matter of fact, Vista runs better than Leopard on it.

 

[flexy]

Originally posted by: C1


VISTA acts like there's too much internal overhead ongoing in the OS. There is too much delay in responding to keyboard actions (eg, spacebar press is supposed to pause video; works instantly in XP but can take from one to three seconds with VISTA). In VISTA sometimes when clicking on a window object the cursor will stick to the window object for two or three seconds (very Commodore 64 like) or the system responds as if it were asleep when clicking on an action object (eg, click on a shortcut to initiate a program).

C1, you bring it to the point!!! Exactly this i am complaing about too in my recent vista rant thread. This is especially awful if you just built a high-end rig. If i go over to my 5 year old A64 PC running XP i want to cry.
It's the irony that a Vista 64 PC with a C2 quad running at 3600/4GB ram "feels" slower than this old machine.
Just for fun i am tempted to have an XP on anotehr partition JUST to see how this machine really flies.
I am with you...it's a feeling "as if something is running in the background" and bogging the whole system down.

I am NOT complaining about gaming performance, but who knows..if i feel bored i throw a XP64 partition on it just for fun and comparing.

 

[flexy]

.

 

[C1]

Actually so far Ive tried two different notebooks each using VISTA and evaluated each for a period of two weeks. The 1st was an A6025 (1.86 CoreDuo; 1GB; 945GM IGP, 533mhz bus) and 2nd is the current A6110 (2.0 Core2Duo; 2GB; 965GM IGP, 667Mhz bus). The A6025 did not worked well with VISTA but was operationally OUTSTANDING when I downgraded it to WINXP. (I really liked that machine & sometimes feel that I should have kept it as it was less expensive & I really liked the look & feel - very military like).

I had the A6025 on 15 day trial & had to decide to love it or leave it. The thinking therefore became .... let me add a little more money to get the next model up & hopefully it will perform "inside the box" when using the VISTA that comes with it. My findings are that the current A6110 performs better with VISTA than the A6025, but still has performance issues. (I probably might even be able to accept the performance issues in the hope that MS will improve OS performance with time but I am not willing to tolerate the video handling quality.)

It is interesting, though, that the PowerDvD 7 that comes with the A6110 performs nearly perfectly when it is installed in my S6420 (Pentium M 1.73, 776Mb ram, 915GM IGP,400mhz bus) that uses WINXP & the older Power DvD ver 4.0 runs good in VISTA with the exception of problems with portions of the fast-forward functionality. In all of this though, remember that Ive really got VISTA throttled back (ie, a lot of stuff disabled).

Out of all of this, I think that what I will do is reinstall the OS (as it is the original install that came with the machine) & re-evaluate. It is possible something in the OS didnt setup up correctly, although when I received the machine, I actually had to start the OS from a Fujitsu splash language select screen which then went on to do an OS unpack/install. But this time I will leave effects stuff enabled (except for UAC).

Oh yes, I forgot to add that I did verify that I can downgrade the A6110 to WINXP (my requirement for any notebook purchase selection). And yes, XP feels & performs significantly more responsively (eg, smoothness of video playback, response to IO requests such as keyboard/mouse, application startup, etc.) A guess is that one of the areas in VISTA which needs to be reviewed is priority of the interrupt handing.

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[ultimatebob]

I'm using Windows Vista Premium on my desktop computer, and found that it works OK. That said, I ended up having to get a new printer and sound card because they were two years old and were not fully supported on Vista. My three year old digital camera doesn't work with Vista at all, and getting my iPod to work with it was a pain in the ass. I also found that about half of my existing library of older software and games (2001-2005 era titles) will not install properly under Vista as well.

Oh, and true story... when I recently asked an HP tech about why their Vista printer support was so lousy, he said that even people inside the company were complaining about these issues and that I should probably downgrade to Windows XP. Not exactly a vote of confidence for Vista!

I've also found that the Aero interface does noticeably slow things down compared to XP, even on a Core 2 Duo machine with 2 GB of RAM and a GeForce 8600 GTS video card. File copies and network transfer rates are also slower as well. My laptop running Windows XP has a similar hardware specification (same CPU speed and memory, but only 128 MB of video memory), and it feels "snappier" overall. Perhaps SP1 will help speed up Vista, but as of now I'm disappointed and wouldn't recommend this OS to anybody.

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: ultimatebob
I'm using Windows Vista Premium on my desktop computer, and found that it works OK. That said, I ended up having to get a new printer and sound card because they were two years old and were not fully supported on Vista. My three year old digital camera doesn't work with Vista at all,

What models? I can understand the printer and sound card not having the same features they did in XP, but a camera is kind of crazy.

and getting my iPod to work with it was a pain in the ass.

Downloading iTunes and plugging in your iPod is a pain in the ass?

I also found that about half of my existing library of older software and games (2001-2005 era titles) will not install properly under Vista as well.

Name them?

Oh, and true story... when I recently asked an HP tech about why their Vista printer support was so lousy, he said that even people inside the company were complaining about these issues and that I should probably downgrade to Windows XP. Not exactly a vote of confidence for Vista!

More like not exactly a vote of confidence for the company that guy is working for!

I've also found that the Aero interface does noticeably slow things down compared to XP, even on a Core 2 Duo machine with 2 GB of RAM and a GeForce 8600 GTS video card.

What does Aero "slow down?" I really want to know.

File copies and network transfer rates are also slower as well.

This is the only point in your rant I've actually seen happen, and I can say in my experience it is fixed by SP1.

My laptop running Windows XP has a similar hardware specification (same CPU speed and memory, but only 128 MB of video memory), and it feels "snappier" overall. Perhaps SP1 will help speed up Vista, but as of now I'm disappointed and wouldn't recommend this OS to anybody.

 

[n7]

When i got my HP dv1440ca in August of 2006, the first thing i did was format XP off & install Vista Ultimate RC1.

This is on a beastly Pentium M 1.86 GHz w/ 1 GB DDR, a speedy 4200 RPM drive, & GMA900! (no aero supported) :roll:

And while not the fastest obviously, it runs Vista just fine.

It also runs videos just fine.

 

[Parasitic]

My Macbook (and now Macbook Pro) runs Vista fine.

It just looks like it's either a software problem, or a PEBKC problem.

Yes, you may have to get some new software to keep up with the times, but still they aren't hard to find.

Nero + Roxio: replace with CDBurnerXP (free)
PowerDVD: use WMP11 or WMP Classic
Corel applications: not sure which ones, but if it's WordPerfect then try Office or OpenOffice.

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: n7
When i got my HP dv1440ca in August of 2006, the first thing i did was format XP off & install Vista Ultimate RC1.

This is on a beastly Pentium M 1.86 GHz w/ 1 GB DDR, a speedy 4200 RPM drive, & GMA900! (no aero supported) :roll:

And while not the fastest obviously, it runs Vista just fine.

It also runs videos just fine.

I've got Vista Business on an Inspiron 700M with similar specs, it is perfectly fine as well.

 

[ultimatebob]

Originally posted by: loup garou

and getting my iPod to work with it was a pain in the ass.

Downloading iTunes and plugging in your iPod is a pain in the ass?

It sure as hell wasn't THAT easy. I had to install some additional "compatibility update" patches for Vista, and even then it still occasionally pops up a warning saying that my "E" drive needs to be checked. The new path names for the My Documents folders also screwed up my iTunes music library, which I needed to rebuild from scratch.

 

[nerp]

Celeron M 440 Laptop here with 2GB ram and Vista Home Premium. Runs like a dream. I had to wipe it and get rid of the nastiness compaq/hp wanted me to tolerate, but once I installed Vista fresh and popped in 2GB of ram. Wow. Niceness. Faster than XP thanks to superfetch. Slow laptop HDs really benefit from it.

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: ultimatebob

Originally posted by: loup garou

and getting my iPod to work with it was a pain in the ass.

Downloading iTunes and plugging in your iPod is a pain in the ass?

It sure as hell wasn't THAT easy. I had to install some additional "compatibility update" patches for Vista, and even then it still occasionally pops up a warning saying that my "E" drive needs to be checked. The new path names for the My Documents folders also screwed up my iTunes music library, which I needed to rebuild from scratch.

Jeez, those compatibility updates were like a year ago...I don't really consider WU a pain in the ass, but whatever. If you have the latest version of iTunes, wiping the iPod and reloading your music should fix the disk check problem.

The change to users from documents and settings should have no effect on software...there is a D&S junction point for compatibility.

 

[soonerproud]

Originally posted by: ultimatebob
Oh, and true story... when I recently asked an HP tech about why their Vista printer support was so lousy, he said that even people inside the company were complaining about these issues and that I should probably downgrade to Windows XP. Not exactly a vote of confidence for Vista!

No, HP needs to get their act together and release drivers that fully support Vista. The no vote of confidence is against HP, not Vista.

 

[soonerproud]

Originally posted by: Parasitic
My Macbook (and now Macbook Pro) runs Vista fine.

It just looks like it's either a software problem, or a PEBKC problem.

Yes, you may have to get some new software to keep up with the times, but still they aren't hard to find.

Nero + Roxio: replace with CDBurnerXP (free)
PowerDVD: use WMP11 or WMP Classic
Corel applications: not sure which ones, but if it's WordPerfect then try Office or OpenOffice.

:thumbsup:

Nero and Vista absolutely do not get along well. The problem here isn't Vista, but it is the large overhead that Nero requires because of all the other useless crap it installs without your consent. Nero adds it's own indexing and search service to Vista which is hard to disable. So now you have two indexing services running all the time eating CPU cycles and RAM while killing performance.

Lets not forget to mention all the startup crap that many of those programs the op installed that may be causing his performance issues. It is crappy software that is the OP's issue and not Vista.

 

[soonerproud]

Originally posted by: ultimatebob
It sure as hell wasn't THAT easy. I had to install some additional "compatibility update" patches for Vista, and even then it still occasionally pops up a warning saying that my "E" drive needs to be checked. The new path names for the My Documents folders also screwed up my iTunes music library, which I needed to rebuild from scratch.

Apple makes great software for the MAC, but seems to drop the ball when making it for Windows for some reason. I just avoid all Apple software on Windows and use another brand MP3 player instead of the iPod. I'm not suggesting you get rid of the iPod or iTunes in your case. But you might want to consider converting all of you music files to MP3 and reformat the iPod with Windows and use it as a regular MP3 player. Then you won't need Apple's crappy (and insecure) software.

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: stash
Do a clean install without any of those applications "tailored" by Fujitsu and see how it runs.

Yep! Or, at least, get rid of all the cruft...

More memory (4 GB), Readyboost (4 GB), and SP1 work wonders (on a lappy) too!

Also, make sure you're running the latest BIOS. I've had to flash my Toshiba A215 4 times in 6 months. Dittos for keeping up with the manufacturer driver updates...

This is a hardware issue. If you're lappy's hardware isn't working right, XP will NOT be the cure!

As far as running old software goes...

The only software I had trouble with was Winamp, but they fixed it in October.

This is a software issue. XP would have made a difference, but I wasn't willing to give up Vista - as much as I love Winamp. It was a tough decision, believe me, but I knew it was just a matter of time and patience.

The oldest proggie I'm running is the Office 2000 suite (minus Outlook) and it's been working great, even though Microsoft doesn't officially support its use on Vista.

My suggestion is to hang in there with Vista... but I'm not a wimp! 😀

 

[Mandin62]

i am running vista on a gateway laptop with 2gigs Ram, Core2 1.6Ghz and intel 945gm chipset. and vista home premium runs great. i uninstalled all the factory crap. getting it to as close to a fresh install as possible and went from there. i have absolutely no problems with it. and this thing is not a beast i think i payed 600 for it.

on the desktop side. my e6600, 8800gt, 4GB Ram, system runs Vista Ultimate x64 so well that i feel like i take a giant leap back whenever i use XP on a computer that has the same hardware. Vista is not the problem. the problem is crap software and even worse drivers, not Vista's fault. but even then most of these issues are either resolved or are being resolved.

 

[C1]

Worked continuously all yesterday until wee hours of this morn evaluating the Fujitsu A6110 (still have a few days before 15 day trial is up).

Did a lot of tests including hardware checkout, load tests using both WIN VISTA & WINXP along with DvD player application swapping, etc.

I can only summarize basic findings, but it appears EVERYBODY is right !!!!!!!! (At least more or less - as more users have reported in since late yesterday & now there seems to be a wider range of of experience testimonied.)

The results below pertain to what I found with MY particular A6110 & version of VISTA & Fujitsu supplied drivers which came with the thing. (It is taken for granted that another's mileage will vary depending on their unique hardware & setup/settings & flavor of VISTA OS, patches & used applications, etc., but I am convinced that a broad generalization from the results is valid.)

1. A6110 hardware is not defective. It's not the award winning & cutting edge stuff that Clickm3 uses (low latency Mushkin ram, etc.), but Fujitsu stuff probably rates middle of the road.

2. The PowerDvD 7 included with A6110 does not work well with VISTA especially if there's ANY multi-tasking ongoing (eg, copying a folder from one place to another).
(Just copying a 32GB folder from one place to another resulted in the application stuttering continuously at 0.5 sec intervals.)

3. The latencies & sticking cursors in VISTA are real. They are not necessarily a defect with VISTA. It's just that VISTA needs the resources (quality & quantity) that it needs to run smoothly especially in a multi-tasking situation (Im accepting on faith the testimonies that with adequate ram & good video graphics card, etc. VISTA's more than fine & runs great on certain notebooks in which the OS is very favorable with the specific hardware & drivers unique to that make/model).

4. In VISTA & using PowerDvD 4 (XP vintage; older WinDvD7 would not work) I was actually able to watch a movie while multitasking (ie, SIMULTANEOUSLY : PowerDvD 4 playing, copying 32Gb file, Media player playing a wmf, sidebar open with clock, VISTA doing a performance evaluation, 4-5 other windows open). VISTA response delay & hurky-jerky escalate slightly quadartically with increasing load (ie, as tasks are added). But it does finish all the work & does not crash, but under the type load I used (with my A6110 & 2GB ram) trying to open up another application might take 10-15 seconds or more.

5. Repeating the above type tests using XP Home was very different (response wise). SIMULTANEOUSLY: media player playing wmf, DvD 4 (or version 7 didnt matter), Adobe PDF, Mozilla browser, Wordpad, Copy 32Gb folder ongoing, sound recorder going, about 15 windows total open there were NO DISCERNABLE (or obvious stutterings). All videos & sound from media players presentations were uniterrupted. (In fact I tried to "break the system" but couldnt.) However, trying to open up another application took 10 or more seconds & attempting to drag an open window around the screen did (not unexpectedly) produce noticeable delayed screen updates.



So VISTA is just what the floor sales people say.....on average - resource hungry. (A seasoned XP user would never have expected the on average resources requirement escalation that's needed for VISTA. - so some may be thinking that their 2Gb system is not working correctly even with unpresedented ram & cpu - see Note * below). I'll admit during the tests that I did notice & enjoy the VISTA advance looking aero glass & I could adapt to it's differentness, but settting up a system (front to back) is a lot of work & it's something I dont want to have to do over & over again so I am being careful about which way to fly.

So choose your poison. If you want to run a notebook using VISTA to be up todate technologically & have the great graphics & multitask & expect smooth & responsive performance then be prepared to get the needed hardware (memory, graphics, etc. quality & quantity along with decent software application well written for VISTA ). The VOSTRO cited above is reported to work acceptably & that's probably a good bechmark for hardware requirements & now I see that other systems have been added. Otherwise downgrade & live with the old school WINXP OS.

Out of all of this I plan to keep A6110 & am very satisfied that the hardware works as the manufacturer intended. If I want to stay with VISTA in A6110 (which has color enhanced screen option - great for movies - makes the difference between watching a movie & actually seeing it - plus got a $400 discount) then probably the best I could do is to buy 4GB ram & a decent movie player. (Staying with VISTA though there will still be more expenses down the road with replacing XP applications which are found to be incompatible.)


Note: (*) I used to bragg how with my 3.06 hyperthreaded system (512 mb rambus & XP OS) I could simultaneously play a DvD while I was decrypting two DvDs while I was compressing 5 DvD movies files with Shirink while I was playing an MP3 while I was updating a 100 page word doc (that contained substantial graphics). The RAMBUS got so hot it would burn your finger & I used a large 24" house box fan on the system case (side cover off) to keep the thing from going catastrophic.


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