Vista SP1 Coming In Q1 2008

Many readers sent in word of Microsoft's announcement of the schedule for Vista SP1. The Beskerming blog has a good summary. Up to 15,000 people will get access to a beta of SP1 by the end of September; general release is targeted (not promised in stone) for early 2008. The service pack is said to improve performance and stability, not to add features.

Re:Windows XP SP3

[Jugalator]

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/service packs.mspx [microsoft.com]

It's planned for 1JHCKY 2008...

SP3 for Windows XP Professional is currently planned for 1H CY2008

it seems that the standalone image is going to be

[LordSnooty]

... 1GB

*agog*

And you need 7GB of disk space? Are you sure this is just a service pack? Bloat!!

performance and reliability fixes are already out

[Arathon]

If you look around the web, you'll find that the main two fixes to be included in SP1 are already out, and have been since the beginning of August.

Ars Technica article about the packs [arstechnica.com]

Memory

[El Lobo]

Hmm... Here we go again.....Vista doesn't chew memory upp, for crying out loud! . Vista is USING the memory that is unused. What do you pay for your memory for? To have it unused? If nobody is using it, Vista will just use it damn it!. Don't worry, if some application will need it, Vista's memory manager will give it back.

Think it is SuperFetch you're describing?

[Blahbooboo3]

Unless you are saying you need more ram (which may be true), this is why Vista always has all of the memory utilized

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsv ista/features/details/superfetch.mspx [microsoft.com]

SuperFetch

Windows SuperFetch enables programs and files to load much faster than they would on Windows XP-based PCs.

When you're not actively using your computer, background tasks--including automatic backup programs and antivirus scans--run when they will least disturb you. These background tasks can take up system memory space that your programs had been using. On Windows XP-based PCs, this can slow progress to a crawl when you attempt to resume work.

SuperFetch monitors which applications you use the most and preloads these into your system memory so they'll be ready when you need them. Windows Vista also runs background programs, like disk defragmenting and Windows Defender, at low priority so that they can do their job but your work always comes first.

Re:yea.. thanks microsoft..

[Jugalator]

vista really chews the memory up, I hope they fix that first off..

Here's my unofficial mini-service pack for Vista. :-p

1. Type services.msc in the start menu search box and go there.
2. Open and set "Windows Search" to "Inactive" as its start mode and stop the service, unless you use Vista's search facilities and not a third party tool like Total Commander or Directory Opus, etc.
3. Open and disable "Superfetch" in the same way, unless you trust it to actually make things run faster and predict your usage behavior. Keep in mind that it'll keep caching data to RAM in its "prediction" process. Even data files, not just executables and DLL's. This can be especially nasty when it starts caching 100 MB-sized files you have downloaded with P2P apps because it think you'll run them soon, or something.
4. Try putting in a ReadyBoost-compatible (you probably won't know if it is until you've tried :-p) USB memory stick and have Vista manage it as extra RAM. It's not really RAM-fast or anything (but it doesn't seem to make things worse at least), but especially seeemed to cut a bit on hard drive access. I'm not sure, but it's possible it relocates some of its swap file to it as ReadyBoost kicks in.
5. If you haven't got these installed (you'll notice if it tells you they can't be installed on your OS), download and install these Vista hotfixes performance and reliability [microsoft.com] and compatibility and reliability [microsoft.com]. Among other things included is fixes to the Vista memory manager and many users have reported both cut memory usage directly after boot up, and better 3D benchmark scores. It also fixes the infamous "slow file copy" bug of Vista.

Now try use it for a day or so, and hopefully your hard drive access has been cut. As long as you don't use the Vista desktop search, no disabled services above really impact the ability of Vista to function as normal, and you can always enable them again if you notice no improvement. Something else that access your drive a lot at a few times is the System Restore feature that also runs as a service, but I don't recommend disabling that one since it'll also disable your ability to restore your OS state to an earlier date if, say, an application or driver install would go horribly wrong.

Oh quityerbitchin

[Sycraft-fu]

Seriously, Vista likes lots of RAM. That's just how it is. If that's not acceptable, don't use it. However I don't see it as a big deal because RAM is CHEAP. For a new laptop, using DDR2, you are talking $80 for 2GB which will make Vista plenty happy. If you can afford a brand new laptop, you can't pretend like that's an expense you can't handle.

This happens with basically every version of Windows, the memory requirements double. For Windows XP my memory recommendations were 256/512/1GB meaning if you didn't have at least 256MB, I said don't bother, 512MB was what I recommended as a realistic minimum if you had less than that upgrade, and 1GB was what I recommended for good performance overall. With Vista it's 512/1GB/2GB.

Memory has never been something you wanted to cheapskate on, and that's particularly true now given how cheap it is.

So I doubt they'll be "fixing" it's memory usage. Memory is cheap these days and stuff is using it. Also Vista will always eat up all free RAM with it's caching. Empty RAM is wasted RAM. It'll precache programs you run, and free up the RAM as running applications need it. Right now my system is reporting 28 of 4096 MB free, even though I'm running just Fiefox. However of that, 3017GB is cache and can be freed up at any time. That's a much better idea than leaving RAM open just so people can get a warm fuzzy feeling seeing it as free.

They might be able to optimize RAM usage a bit, but I doubt it. New MS OSes always use more RAM, and people always seem surprised. I could see the complaint a bit back when the RAM makers were colluding and fixing prices, but now when 2GB of RAM costs less than a nice wireless keyboard and mouse, I just don't see what the big deal is. Even if you don't run Vista, you should drop more RAM in your system. Apps are not going to start using less, and the biggest way to kill the performance of a fast system is too little RAM.

Window Handles my friend.

[oliverthered]

That's because of window handles, I get the problem all the time in XP. As soon as all the window handles are used up you can no longer create any new windows, the problem is that closing windows doesn't seem to free them up and the only thing to do is reboot.

I would have thought they would have fixed this obvious problem that causes no end of grief to people where I work ages ago. Looks like I'll have to stick the X Windows.

Now, if only someone in Microsoft would realise that forms in Word have been broken since the year . and actually fix them.

Re:it seems that the standalone image is going to

[Anonymous Coward]

For the record, a bootable live cd image of kubuntu fits into a 700mb disk ... :)

Re:vista sp1

[jd142]

Yes, the monthly updates will get most of the service pack. That's one of the two reasons that the windows update version should only be around 50 megs for a fully patched computer vs. 1 gig for the standalone install: sp1 will rollup already released patches. The other big reason is that the 1 gig version has all of the language files included. You won't download the Japanese language versions of the files from windows update if all you need is English. The 1 gig file will let admins push out just one file to client computers, during a downtime period of course, and know that everything that's needed will be installed.

Re:Yes Vista was Released too soon....

[Arathon]

It's at least worth noting that Paul Thurrott of WinSuperSite has stated in his new "SP1 Revealed" showcase that he is currently unsure whether SP1 will still include a kernel update [winsupersite.com].

I expect it still will, and they just left it off their press release, but it does seem a little weird that they wouldn't announce it.

Re:Window Handles my friend.

[tknd]

It might be a visual studio bug. I remember VC++ 6 was known to cause some big issues with your OS. Not sure about .net.

I no longer use visual studio but I occasionally run into the same problem. But I do find that closing windows does let me create new ones.

The positive side of Vista frustrations.

[bearfx]

I tried Windows Vista. My hardware, while not brand spanking new, is quite reasonable - Athlon X2 3800+ (socket 939) - 4 GB RAM - NVidia 6800 series And Asus says my motherboard is Vista Compatible, but my excursion into Vista failed... Miserably. First, a number of my applications did not work, or they started working and then closed. Next, I started experiencing "driver" related crashes (All my drivers are MS approved). Then, I stopped being able to manage files on my computer (copying between two hard drives at 500K/s...) I updated, I patched, I swapped components, I became frustrated, and I installed Ubuntu. For the months I had Vista, I couldn't run most of the applications I *had* to have, so it made the switch MUCH easier. Since installing Ubuntu, my computer has not crashed a single time. Their are only two things that make me miss Windows - Visual Studio 2005 (my work), and Roboform. I can use other IDE's, but they aren't quite as nice as VS2005. I can use other password managers, but they aren't as functional as Roboform. I miss nothing else from windows. For those who miss the eye candy Vista may or may not offer, depending on how much of your soul you are willing to trade, try beryl.

Re:Window Handles my friend.

[nuzak]

> Is it possible to determine how many window handles have been allocated to a program?

Process Explorer [microsoft.com]. You can even break handles with it if you're sure they're not going to be used anymore (I used do this all the time with TortoiseCVS, but more recent versions seem to clean up better).

There's also a command-line tool from the same place (sysinternals) that lists handles, called strangely enough, "handle.exe". I find I have to run that one as the system user (which you can do with psexec -s from the pstools suite) in order to get much use out of it though.

Re:Me'thinks

[MightyMartian]

Well, the organization I work for has pretty much decided that Vista and Office 2007 will not be touched until about 2009. They don't want to spend the money on hardware upgrades, on the potential for software problems, or in retraining the staff. We're not alone in this. Maybe the gamers and home users can be bribed by the "latest and the greatest" line, but for business, an upgrade that involves as much change as Vista does is not something that is going to be jumped into lightly.

Re:Window Handles my friend.

[MeBot]

There's a configurable limit to the number of GDI handles that can be created at one time... I believe the default is 10,000 but my memory might be off. They're not automatically reclaimed (there's no garbage collector), but proper use of these handles is to release them when you're done with them, and you shouldn't be holding on to them for long periods.

Generally when you run out of handles it's because some program has a bug and is forgetting to release them, not because of the OS.

Re:Windows XP SP3

[RealGrouchy]

To save other people the hassle of looking it up, "1H CY2008" parses approximately to "1st Half of Calendar Year 2008".

- RG>

Re:Window Handles my friend.

[weicco]

closing windows doesn't seem to free them up

You are right. Closing window doesn't free handle. Program must explicitly call CloseHandle. And take notice that closing window doesn't necessarily end the program. So poorly written program could end up chewing handles and resources. But at the moment process has ended all it's handles are released automatically.

But I wasn't aware of any global handle limit in Windows, only that it's limited to system resources mainly memory. There's a per process GDI handle limit (something between 256 and 65536, W2K defaults to 16384) which is a good thing or otherwise one thread could end up eating every resource from system. I tried to google around on this one but found nothing. Could you provide a link to a site that talks about global handle limit in Windows XP?

Re:Window Handles my friend.

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a limit of about 32,700 windows per window station (which is a logical container and security boundary for desktops). If you have multiple users logged in they'll each have their own window station. Individual processes are limited to 10,000 windows. Processes ought to free their handles when the associated window is closed. Failing this, handles are reclaimed when a process terminates. So if you run several instances of the same crappy process that leaks handles, you can hit the limit. You don't need to reboot; close one of them.

Re:it seems that the standalone image is going to

[cbhacking]

Remember that Vista installs every feature, including the ones you can't even access with the version of the OS you're running, onto the hard drive (this is why you can do an in-place upgrade from, say, home basic to home premium with nothing but a new license key... the features are already installed, and just need to be unlocked). So, everything from the full capabilities of ISS to Media Center to all the tablet, accessibility, and voice command software is already installed. I'm not quite saying this is a good thing - it makes Vista's install footprint vaguely absurd (over 12GB for the 32-bit edition) - but it's nice to never again need the DVD it came on.

As for the service pack being that big, remember that standalone service packs include all the prior patches as well as new fixes. Patching a fresh install of the newest edition of XP media center (either called SP or 2005, I forget, in any case based off the XP SP2 code base) requires a couple hundred megs of patches and updates. That's an OS with an install footprint only a bit over 3GB that has already received a service pack update to the point that most people considered it "ready" (FWIW, I count Vista as ready enough that I've refused to use XP since RC2, but I'm talking about the public perceptions of XP vs. Vista not my own). I'm not surprised that the standalone pack is so large. The size downloaded to the typical user's machine, which has been kept up to date in general, will probably be at worst a few hundred megs. It will be downloaded by Windows' BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service) service, which downloads when the connection has idle bandwidth and is quite good at handling connection loss and automatically resumes where it was left off. In other words, while the standalone may be a bitch, the general user's update shouldn't be too hard.

Re:Windows XP SP3: Maybe

[MojoStan]

IOW: Don't hold your breath for XP SP3

Actually, along with yesterday's Vista Service Pack announcement, Microsoft also announced that Windows XP Service Pack 3 was being released "in preliminary form in the next few weeks and in final form in the first half of next year." (Source: seattlepi.com - Vista service pack coming [nwsource.com])

Notice no mention of Vista SP1 on that page Therefore, this page is probably being ignored by MS.

Also, that page [microsoft.com] says "Last Updated: March 28, 2007." It obviously hasn't been updated with the latest news from the last few days.