Observations and Closing Thoughts
As far as the Vista user experience is concerned, users shouldn’t expect any significant changes with SP1. In this respect Vista SP1 is much like any other Windows service pack, rather than being another XP SP2. To that extent if you threw a pre-SP1 system and a post-SP1 system in front of us, we’d need to do some low-level benchmarking to identify which one was using SP1. In day-to-day use, the difference is not obvious outside of the specific improvements we’ve talked about.
For those curious about how long the SP1 installation process takes, Microsoft has said it will take anywhere between 20 minutes to over an hour. Some of this boils down to simple hard drive performance, with slower drives taking longer to update all of the files SP1 patches. Given our own installation efforts, we suspect that there are other factors that are non-obvious - in other words, your mileage may vary. In general Vista x64 will take longer to patch than Vista x32 due to the additional files that need to be patched under Vista x64 (e.g. there are a number of files and libraries that come in 32-bit and 64-bit versions). On our official test system we clocked Vista x64 at 33.5 minutes to install from start to finish, while a laptop took just shy of an hour. You’ll definitely want to go find something else to do for a bit while Vista is patching, and if you're running an ultraportable laptop with a 1.8" hard drive you will very likely break the one hour threshold.
One thing that is unfortunate for Microsoft with SP1 is that there is a good chance that system performance immediately following the patching process will be lower than it was prior to patching. As part of the installation process the SuperFetch and ReadyBoost subsystems are purged of all caches and learned behaviors, effectively reverting a patched system to that of a brand-new untrained system. Vista does not take long to retrain itself, and Microsoft notes the process can take a couple of days (we were back to perceived normal within a day), but nevertheless a lot of people are going to be thrown off by things such as longer application load times immediately following the patch.
Finally, coming into SP1 we heard some concerns about application and driver compatibility. While we cannot test everything, we have not run into any new issues with SP1. We have heard within the last day that a small number of systems are having an issue with one of the SP1 pre-patches (patches that are required prior to installing SP1) causing an infinite reboot sequence, but we have not experienced this first hand, nor do we have an accurate idea of how large the affected “small” group of users is, given the echo chamber effect on the Internet. We cannot recall a Windows service pack that didn’t break at least a handful of Windows installations, so this could simply be par for the course; it’s hard to say at this point.
At the end of the day, we don’t have much of anything bad to say about SP1 outside of the “fix” for displaying the amount of installed memory on 32-bit systems, so our recommendation is that all Vista users to install SP1 once it becomes available to the public at large. It won’t knock most people’s socks off, but the file and network performance improvements are long overdue and will be noticeable for most users. Ultimately, any user who has felt slighted by the poor copy performance of Vista will find relief in SP1, as will anyone whose pet-issue has specifically been fixed in Vista SP1. Anyone else who didn’t like Vista for other reasons will be no more impressed by SP1 than they were by the original version; there are a few quirks that should have been resolved in SP1 that were not.
Compared to where we were a year ago, our general recommendation for Vista is unchanged. We are however impressed with the progress of the x64 versions of Vista over the past year, after feeling like it was lagging behind Vista x86 from beta up through the release version of Vista. Vista x64 is now clearly on par with Vista x86 and we have no concerns about its compatibility or performance. There are still good reasons to stick with Vista x86, such as compatibility with specific applications and Vista x64’s higher memory usage due to WoW64, but these are the only reasons. A year ago we recommended using Vista x86 unless you specifically needed Vista x64; now we’re comfortable making the opposite recommendation of running Vista x64 unless you have a specific reason to stick with Vista x86.
Finally, for those Windows users still sticking with XP, they too will be getting Microsoft's long-overdue XP SP3 in the very near future. We’ll be bringing a review of that to you as soon as it goes gold later this quarter, along with a fully up to date performance comparison between Vista and XP to better illustrate what little gap remains between the two operating systems. The list of changes isn’t nearly as far-reaching as Vista SP1, but there are a couple of interesting items on the list. (Ed: It will also be nice to not install over 100 patches/updates/etc. after a clean XP SP2 install.) Stay tuned for that in the coming weeks.
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whatthehey - Wednesday, February 27, 2008 - link
The only thing they can do is nitpick about the use of a term like x64, when everybody knows what it means and Microsoft uses it all over the place (i.e. "Update for Windows Vista for x64-based Systems").You, sir, add new meaning to the term anal retentive.
"The sky is falling - someone said x64 instead of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X64">x86-64! Help!"
PrinceGaz - Wednesday, February 27, 2008 - link
They probably use the term x64 because Microsoft used it for the 64-bit x86 version of XP - "Windows XP Professional x64 Edition", to differentiate it from the old 64-bit Itanium version - "Windows XP 64-bit Edition".Everyone knows what x64 means (everyone who actually needs to know, anyway), so it makes sense to use it as it is quicker and easier than alternatives like x86-64 or 64-bit x86.
Martimus - Wednesday, February 27, 2008 - link
Is exFAT an open standard? It sounds like a promising File Management system for a non-Microsoft OS.mmjjzz - Wednesday, February 27, 2008 - link
READ, interest problem found!!client: Intel Q6600, 4GB RAM, Vista 64bit
server: Intel Celeron 2.53, 2 GB RAM, Windows 2003 SP1
Gigabit network (Jumbo Frames Enabled, SP1 didn't improve anything without jumbo frames enabled)
Pre SP1 (large file)
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client (non OS drive) -> Server (share 1) = 43MB/s
Server (share1) -> client = 6MB/s
Post SP1 (large file)
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client (non OS drive) -> Server (share 1) = 45MB/s
Server (share1) -> client = 33MB/s
on client, Copying from Share1 to Share2 on server = 900K/s
Share to share TAKES FOREVER.. i never tested this pre SP1, but i am assuming it is the same
gimper48 - Wednesday, February 27, 2008 - link
I may have missed this in the article. However, some people see it in update some do not. I have vista 64 and it has never come up as an option. Anyone know the methodology to determine who gets it and who does not? Also is the it sp1 only available to technet subscriptions? That kinda screws the small systems admin at a small company. They cannot upgrade all in one shot then.DigitalFreak - Wednesday, February 27, 2008 - link
No-one is supposed to be getting it via Windows Update yet (except maybe some Beta testers). The fact that it was up there briefly the other day was a mistake on Microsoft's part. It should start showing up some time in March.haplo602 - Wednesday, February 27, 2008 - link
While you mentioned UEFI, it would be an interesting separate article/guide. With technology description ad current state of affairs.Are you planning any such article ?
TheJian - Wednesday, February 27, 2008 - link
I'm wondering about the comment made regarding XP64 being bad for consumers. Why? Myself I'd like to see XP64 vs. Vista64 benchmarks done (games and all). Is there something stopping you from benchmarking XP64? It's been 2.5 years since this article at Tom's:http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/08/23/windows_xp_...">http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/08/23/windows_xp_...
XP64 looked pretty good then, 2.5yrs later it should SURELY be better correct? Why no testing for XP64? Most of Tom's benchmarks show a dead heat for xp32 vs xp64. On Steampowered.com Vista 64bit only counts for 2.5% of their users and Vista total is only 16.5%. Shouldn't you have a go at 64bit XP? Unfortunately they didn't breakdown the XP32 vs XP64 numbers.
Ryan Smith - Wednesday, February 27, 2008 - link
The issue with XP64 is that it is effectively an orphaned operating system on the consumer side of things. It was never even intended for consumer use, it was a slightly retooled version of Server 2003 designed to fill a gap for workstations that needed a 64bit version of Windows. Very few companies in the consumer space are testing their wares against XP64, this goes for both hardware and software. Compatibility problems are still few and far between, but never the less going forward it's only going to get worse particularly when it comes to drivers.TheJian - Thursday, February 28, 2008 - link
Are you sure? Nvidia's latest WHQL driver is dated Dec2007 with these notes:# WHQL driver for GeForce FX, 6, 7, and 8 series GPUs.
# Added support for GeForce 8800 GTS 512 GPU.
# Recommended driver for the latest DirectX 9, and OpenGL applications.
# Numerous game and application compatibility fixes. Please refer to the release documentation for more information on features, driver fixes, and known issues.
They are still improving gaming with these! I don't see it as Orphaned when people are revolting against Vista. Read the fixes in the readme. There are quite a few issues fixed in 64bit. Don't forget people were buying this OS for years before Vista. Both Intel and AMD were selling 64bit chips before vista for years. People were running XP64bit and still are (if they wanted to use their chip's abilities that is). Is it so tough to throw up some benchmarks for xp64? Is MS telling you not to do it in some agreement like stopping XP SP3 benchmarks from being published in their EULA? Just checked ATI/AMD and their drivers are updated for 64bit FEB 13th! That's just 2 weeks ago and includes the 3870x2 boards.
If movement in this area picked up (cough up the benchies!) I could see MS backing away from Vista and just re-releasing XP with DX10.1 and Aero Glass which would make Vista pointless. Vista could end up just like WinME. We ended up with Win2k, and for games that wouldn't run in that OS we dual booted to 98-OSR2 :) LOL I see drivers for my chipsets on Intel P35 and Nvidia boards also. I don't see waning support. Same date for Nvidia's xp32/64 drivers so they are developed together (the readme covers both also). It seems to me only Microsoft wants it orphaned. Crappy benchmarks would prove it (or not if they're great!) so lets see some please.