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Preview of Vista On Old Hardware
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Nov 10, 2006 02:26 PM
from the very-crunchy dept.
from the very-crunchy dept.
Grooves writes "According to tests performed by Ars Technica, Windows Vista will need some coddling on old hardware. As a follow-up to their performance review of Vista Beta 2, Ars tested the latest public builds of Vista on hardware spanning from 2001 to a Thinkpad purchased a few months ago. The results show that Vista is extremely RAM hungry, graphical power is less of an issue unless you want eye candy, and hard drive I/O is critical. Also, their experience with 'in-place upgrades' was abysmal, and mirrored my own experiences."
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Nothing for you to see here. Please move along (Score:2, Funny)
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Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
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Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along (Score:5, Funny)
Where? They must be quarantined!
Parent
Security (Score:5, Informative)
And why would any IT department even consider downgrading [sic] to Vista from XP?
Security?
UAC
User Account Control is a new feature affecting administrator accounts - they run with limited priviliges, just as a normal user account does. When a program/user wants to do tasks that actually require admin powers, you have to explicitly allow it by clicking "continue" on a message box that pops up.
Do message boxes get annoying? Depends. Weigh the extra effort of one extra keystroke when you change screen resolutions or install a program against viruses having to ask you permission to rape your computer.
Address Space Layout Randomization
ASLR means that system libraries and DLLs are loaded into random locations in memory at boot time. (Some Linux distros have had this for a while.) This means that even if a zero-day exploit compromises your machine and the attacker can run code on your machine, he won't be able to build the locations of kernel functions into his hack.
"Protected Mode"
New features in the Vista kernel let each process run in its own specialized, super-limited user account. Ninja-ing an svchost process won't do much, since each kernel service lacks the ability to access any more than it has to.
Internet Explorer 7 uses these features to run in something called "protected mode." Iexplore.exe runs under its own super-limited user account, has all disk I/O redirected to some crazy folder ("c:" from IE7 redirects to something like "c:\program files\internet explorer\temp\c") that's locked down tigher than tight.
Although XP has Internet Explorer 7, the XP kernel lacks the ability to manage proccesses in this way. It's not possible to use "protected mode" under XP because XP's kernel is too primitive.
Stability?
Windows Driver Model
The new Windows Driver Model means that drivers not digitally signed and approved by Microsoft will not be allowed to run in kernelspace, meaning crappy drivers - the cause of most Windows bluescreens since the dawn of time - simply won't be allowed to run, let alone crash the system.
The flip side of this is that a new part of the Vista kernel means almost all drivers will not run in kernelspace. The new interface lets 99% of drivers be run in userspace, which doesn't require an expensive Microsoft signature and cannot crash the computer.
About the only drivers that inhabit kernel space are video drviers, which means that we could potentially be seeing less frequent driver releases from nVidia and ATI, but oh well. The Vista kernel will also restart your video driver when it crashes - even with beta drivers, the only time I've seen a blue screen in Vista was when DivX raped my install of Windows Media Player 11.
Windows Update
Yeah, we've had it for quite a while, now - but it's integrated with Windows now, meaning no silly webside + ActiveX control install. You no longer have to use IE for anything.
Shininess? (Though this one's been done to death.)
Granted, there's no one "killer app" for Vista - but that doesn't mean it's not worth using over XP. I haven't been able to make it crash (after removing DivX), and that's running the beta nVidia driver, Steam games (HalfLife 2, CounterStrike: Source, Might & Magic: Dark Messiah), software development on Visual Studio 2005, running the Office 2007 beta, and schoolwork on TASM (legacy DOS programs still seem to run just fine without tweaking under Vista, just that they're not allowed to run full-screen for whatever reason.
Is it RAM and disk heavy? Sure, but so was Windows 95 back in the day, and memory and disk space are cheap. I used to dual-boot Vista over XP, but Vista's my primary OS now - sacrificing a few FPS in HL2 is worth the stabilitiy, although the only antivirus offering compatible with Vista as of now if from TrendMicro.
Parent
Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along (Score:5, Informative)
They did say more RAM is a good idea and recommended 1Gb.
So I guess you will be able tyo run it on your old hardware after all.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So, it could be that the memeory useage you are seeing is not the OS "hogging" memory, but rather that it is simply trying to us
Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along (Score:5, Informative)
I have an old celeron 333 laptop, I think it originally ran 95 or 98. I have had linux on it for years, including the latest Debian unstable. KDE was a dog on it, Gnome ran ok. Someone told me they needed a laptop, but they wanted Windows, so I tried to install Windows on it, any version.
Win XP installer would lock up after about 20 minutes of copying files. Win 2k did the same thing. I tried Win 95/98 but there was no place to get the drivers for the hardware, I'm not even sure what brand the laptop is anymore, the label on the bottom has worn off, and in those versions of windows, nothing works right on a laptop without a million extra drivers that don't come with the OS.
I know the hardware wasn't bad because linux worked fine on it.
So anyway, yeah if you want to talk sluggishness of the OS/GUI, windows and linux are not too different on older hardware. Linux, however, it a lot more likely to actually get the OS installed, detect the hardware, and give you a usable system.
I suspect MS probably puts less effort into making sure that quirks in old hardware are taken into account, as seen by the crashing installer of XP and 2K on it.
Parent
Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along (Score:5, Insightful)
This problem is also true with other operating systems. Microsoft only cares about new hardware now. They know people won't upgrade to vista in waves. Everyone on slashdot should be happy as we've all said windows is bloated! Removing legacy support makes debugging, security and other aspects easier for microsoft. Now if they would just clean up their api...
Just remember, customers asked for this.
Parent
Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along (Score:5, Interesting)
Yours is anecdotal evidence based on a pretty small sample size; I wouldn't draw such broad conclusions from such little data.
I can easily extrapolate exactly the opposite conclusions with a similarly limited experience. In the last six months, I've done two Linux installs on PCs from that same era (approx 400MHz P2) that were happily running Windows 2000. The theory was that even though they were too slow for Windows use I could recycle them into small servers. The Linux installed locked up hard either during installation or on first boot. In both cases, it turned out there was a problem with enabling DMA on these systems that caused the IDE driver to lock-up hard. I noted that both machines worked perfectly well with the older 2.4 Linux kernel.
I don't think the Linux developers working on the latest 2.6 features are paying any more attention to actually testing compatibility with ancient hardware than Microsoft is with Vista. The fact that the Linux kernel model forces drivers to be rebuilt from source with every new kernel release is different from the way Microsoft provides a stable driver API, and which model is going to get you better results with a random old piece of hardware is very unpredictable. The main advantage for Linux in situations like the one I ran into is that the problem was more transparent, and there are many more workarounds to try and resolve issues when they come up. I would hesitate to generalize on this subject beyond that.
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That is not an entirely accurate comparison. The latest Linux distros will run fine on old hardware. Why is that? Because unlike the latest incarnation of Windows, you can pick and choose what packages you want that suit your needs and your hardware's capabilities.
Don't have the horsepower to run KDE or Gnome? Use IceWM, or Fluxbox, or some other lightweight WM. OpenOffice is too heavy duty for your system? Give AbiW
Why should we really upgrade. (Score:2, Insightful)
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Sadly, that would be the sheeple who don't know any better, the ones who don't even know what DRM is all about, and don't realize that there are viable choices out there instead of just unquestioningly accepting whatever Redmond tosses their way through the big chain stores like Circuit City, Best Buy, Office Depot, etc.
Re:Why should we really upgrade. (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
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Post all you like about good XP is, I just don't see any reason to upgrade my Windows 2000 boxes. Do I really want WGA anyway?
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Here's how it's going to happen: Our IT folks at work will hear that Vista is supposedly better at keeping viruses and trojans and such at bay than XP. Which doesn't really mean a lot, given XPs performance. So I'm very much inclined to believe MS when they say Vista
Re:Why should we really upgrade. (Score:5, Informative)
> I'm sure you'll find out about the time they release DirectX 10 for Vista only....
Parent
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Ummm
I'm not sure I currently use anything which is affected by Direct X.
Cheers
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What intelligent person would really want that DRM OS on their box anyway?
is that people who like games will. Remember, the world doesn't revolve around you(or me).
Re:Why should we really upgrade. (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually yes there are. Several in fact.
AOE III and Company of Heroes to name 2.
Parent
Re:Why should we really upgrade. (Score:4, Interesting)
admitedly, I have no interest in either game.
(quick google tells me that it is simply a lock out and not actualy incompatable)
Parent
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Mind you, I work with real operating systems, not the godawful rubbish microsoft sells. XP, and I'm sure vista after it, are forever relegated to running games and trivial things that he needs (and endless damn fixing). Anything serious happens on our linux or unix boxes, that he has little or nothing to do with.
Cunning strategy. (Score:5, Funny)
hardly anybody installs Windows, it's preloaded (Score:5, Interesting)
On one way, all these "features" making it difficult on older hardware are probably crumbs thrown to the OEMs so they'll sell more new computers preloaded with the "new" MS Windows. Funny how that works.
Only getting off the treadmill breaks this loop. IMO.
LoB
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Personally I don't see Vista as a viable upgrade. It's not buying anything for existing hardware that already performs it's required functions.
But there will be people who insist on installing an upgrade on older hardware, then complain about how slow it is. The same has been true with every release of Windows since WFW.
An existing developer box could be recommissioned as a standard desktop, but doing development under Vista will require substantial upgrades. Some tools already require 2GB or more p
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There will also be some home users who will want the new games available only for Vista, or perhaps want the security promises MS is making.
There's another brand-new market for Windows in its non-OEM form: Apple Intel computers. Obvious
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Because they buy new computers becaues their old one does not work or does not work with the software they think they need to run or they want another computer, etc, etc. And I hardly think they'll purchase a new computer which is of lower quality( spec's ) than the one they are replacing so in the worst case, they'll get something that'll have a new version of MS Windows which 'feels' about t
The more things change... (Score:4, Insightful)
"The new version of windows requires more RAM than the last version, and despite MS promises to the contrary, never do an upgrade"
It would be news if this *wasn't* true for a new version of Windows.
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I'm going to stick with XP for a while and then upgrade to a Mac Pro. My thinking is that the Mac lets me run most of the things I'd lik
RAM prices to rise or fall? (Score:2, Interesting)
Vista RC1 is slow (Score:2)
Also, if you're upgrading, keep in mind you need 10.7 GB free disk space to upgrade from Windows XP. In the e
In contrast (Score:2)
I booted Puppy Linux [puppylinux.org], and after about 5 minutes figuring out where Puppy stores the WEP key, had that box on line. It's rocket fast and requires no tweaking. I was blown away with how well I could open word and excel documents from OWA.
New OS' from Redmond always need more CPU and RAM. Interestingly, I was also recently shocked at how usable Tiger was on a G3 233 with 256MB RAM. DARN usable. Try that with a current MS OS and hardware built
Re:Vista RC1 is slow (Score:4, Informative)
I had RC1, then RC2 running on a 3.2Ghz Pentium machine with 512MB. Apps like Adobe Lightroom (Beta 4) and Photoshop CS2 were slow enough to make me give up trying to use them.
My interest in Vista stems mostly from having attended a photographer's summit put on by Microsoft early this year. They were seeking input from pros about the features we'd like to see in Windows and there are actually a few things in Vista that were brought up there, even though the bulk of it was more of a pitch about where they are better than OSX. They still have a long long way to go though.
Parent
Violating EULA? (Score:2)
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What's going on here? (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess I don't understand the intricacies of what's going on because I see no reason whatsoever for a GUI to be more damanding than any contemporary PC game. The only excuse I see is sloppy and inefficient programming. It really leaves me with the impression that one of the big goals of Vista is to promote hardware sales.
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The idea is, by making the UI hardware accelerated, you shift the burden of the UI from the cpu to the video card, which would be almost idle at that time, thus getting -better- performance overall (since GPUs are more efficient, and, again, was idle). Now, if you're hitting the GPU anyway, you have a lot of spare cycles, so might as well add eye candy, its "free" so to speak, sin
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But remember, the GUI has to work with every other part of the system. It can't be "optimized" in the same way as a game, because it's not really a standalone application.
Or are we all forgetting that OS X's GUI was fairly sluggish until they switched to Intel machines with real graphics cards? The Intel Macs should run Vista pretty well.
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I support a small graphics design team that upgraded to OS X 10.2 a few years back. At that time, the fastest machine we had was a Dual 500MHz G4. I know, I know, talk about holding back on hardware upgrades. Like I said, I support, I don't purchase or recommend.
Regardless, OS X has always had a very fluid GUI on older hardware. We even had some old G3's at the time that we used for various tasks (just don't let them go to sleep.. they'll sleep forever). These ran OS X just fine
Will it run on my UNIVAC? (Score:5, Funny)
Will someone please bring me a new rip of Vista right away, or at the very least a large rake?
Ares Technica dead (Score:2)
Now look at it today. It's basically just a tech news site, only with not as good commentary or technical details as most other places. Basically baboons have set up shop in the ruins of the Ars that was.
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Somehow, a "prettier" OS isn't really very high on my list. The ability to hide more and more of the inner workings behind a "friendly" interface does squat for me when I need fix a problem. I suppose it's good for the average user, 'cause it keeps them from screwing stuff
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I realize your original comment may not have been meant as a complaint, but wasn't sure so just used that word. Feel free to substitute, "comment", etc in its place if more fitting.
Change Everything! Now! (Score:4, Funny)
You know, the simple fact that somebody is pointing a gun at the back of your head and demanding that you upgrade should be enough to get you to do so.
Wait... What do you mean, "Nobody's forcing me?" from the tone of your post I could swear your death was imminent, should you choose not to comply.
Parent
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No, but I do have 10.4.8 running on a 1998-vintage PowerBook G3 Series machine with 256MB of RAM. We use it as a wired iTunes station for our studio and a web-browsing machine for in front of the TV.
Subjectively, it's not bad. I wouldn't try to accomplish any photo editing or other heavy-duty tasks, but for e-mail, web, and iTunes, it's snappy enough to be usable. With iTunes and Safari running, it's almost out of RAM, but runs without paging to death