Vista Service Pack 1 Is Out 383
superglaze writes "What's to say? After much prevaricating and slipping out then pulling back, the first service pack for Windows Vista has actually been released. It's available for download now via Microsoft's sites, with an auto-update rollout scheduled for next month, and it should hit Amazon's virtual shelves on Wednesday."
Service Pack 1... Not impressed so far. (Score:5, Interesting)
Too late! (Score:1, Interesting)
Why bother with Vista now if I'll need to bother with Win7 in a year???
Oh noes (Score:4, Interesting)
J/K. I'm always in my mom's basement.
I have successfully installed Service Pack 1. (Score:4, Interesting)
why do I mention it? well. this thread will be full of nasty, snarky lies. maybe i can balance things out a bit and thank the windows team for an update well done.
now if they could just turn their attention to the fail that is 'windows ultimate extras', that would be perfect.
Re:So how long do I wait? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:So how long do I wait? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Slow install (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I've been using it for a few weeks (Score:5, Interesting)
My new computer has a processor 48x faster (just by a megahertz comparison - I'm sure it's actually even faster in the real world), has 341x the RAM, and has roughly 13,107x the hard drive space.
What does the average public use their machines for these days? Browsing the web and checking email. Why is it that our hardware is now orders of magnitude faster in theory but still does the same basic stuff? I can understand some things taking the extra power. Video compression, 3d gaming, compiling source code, etc, should all take a lot of horsepower, but the most basic computer tasks shouldn't take the resources they do. Glancing at task manager on this machine here at work Firefox is currently using 157MB of RAM. Like I said, I once browsed the web on a machine with 6MB total memory.
Re:Unfortunately... (Score:5, Interesting)
Compared to Vista x64 with SP1, Win 2008 ran all my software, was full x64, and the drivers worked for vista. Sound, Video. Codecs worked. Boots quicker, file system ran smoother, files copied at normal speeds.
Even vista after sp1 is still a dog... And god, I hate the new file explorer, I've had to revert back to Directory Opus..
Re:adoption rate (Score:4, Interesting)
Like a lot of companies we've talked about switching over to an alternative OS, but having the usual triad of Microsoft entrenchment (Exchange + Office + AD) makes that an unnerving undertaking for our size.
Another coat of shellac (Score:4, Interesting)
I find it interesting that operating systems are more and more being treated like applications. Traditionally the OS was responsible for managing resources (Disk, Memory, etc.), controlling security, and coordinating activities (queues, jobs, etc.) Today the Windows OS is responsible for browsing the web, playing music, recording TV, and plotting world domination (OK, I added that last one...) Why should these things be included in the "operating system" mix? I would argue that even a windowing system is borderline (see X).
Re:I've been using it for a few weeks (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem isn't bad coding, it's that features are inherently slow. To implement real time spell checking requires a lot of processing power, especially if you can type over 5 characters a second. Think about that for a minute. Remember how long spell checking used to take as it went through the document? It used to take 5-10 minutes for a medium sized paper when I was in HS. Now it can spell check the word that I'm typing multiple times per second and get through the document in around 5 seconds while still bundling in more real time functionality.
I remember when a medium quality video on a computer doing nothing else would have long pauses and not be able to play smoothly. Now I can play music while watching a youtube video through a program running inside my browser with no pauses whatsoever, and that's while streaming it online (which also takes processor power). I can watch youtube videos while playing an intensive game on year old hardware with two monitors running through the video card; that's something I couldn't even dream about a few years ago.
The reason that programs appear slow is because they add features that are more processor intensive than they appear to the naked eye. Plugins are extremely inefficient. Real-time spell checking requires looking up in a dictionary multiple times per second with a lot of wasted effort. Going from 800x600 to 1260x1024 is nearly doubling the number of pixels. CSS is very processor intensive. Features have been pushed on so many fronts it's mind boggling.
Re:So how long do I wait? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:So how long do I wait? (Score:1, Interesting)
After the recent KDE 4.0 debacle, I think it's better to remain silent than criticise Microsoft and become a bunch of hypocrites.
Re:So how long do I wait? (Score:4, Interesting)
Now it's just the opposite. Installing Microsoft stuff is such a royal pain in the bazonga compared to Linux that I just stopped dealing with it. I'm sick of worrying about what "patches" and "service packs" I've applied and which I haven't, what impossible-to-remember-URL I'm supposed to go to for the patches, whether this service pack breaks this while it fixes that
Re:Auto upbreak. (Score:2, Interesting)
I'll load SP1 on both my machines and post some hopefully uneventful results of how both my PCs still work without issue when I get home from this business trip in three days.