Windows 7 Performance Guide
by Ryan Smith and Gary Key on October 26, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
What’s New since Win 7 RC
Unlike Vista, which was furiously being developed right through SP1, there’s very little to report for Windows 7 when it comes to what has changed between the release candidate and the final version.
Internally, the issues we encountered with the RC and mentioned in our RC article have been resolved. Our stuttering HTPC no longer stutters, and Windows 7 now recognizes the JMB363 drive controller in one of our test systems correctly. At this point we have yet to encounter any issues that we can chalk up to a bug in Windows 7, which is a very promising sign.
There have been no notable changes to any of the programs or components of Windows 7 compared to the RC beyond simple bug fixes, so if you’ve use the RC then you’re going to find that the release version behaves the same way.
The only new bit of information we have is that last month Microsoft revealed that Windows 7 has greater CableCARD support, which we believe is a product of the new Protected BDA driver subsystem. Unfortunately the Digital Cable Advisor tool needed to enable this feature, and the associated firmware for the ATI Digital Cable TV Wonder (the only CableCARD tuner currently on the market) missed their release date of the 22nd, so there is no way to use this functionality at the moment. We don’t have any idea of when these will become available.
Externally, Microsoft’s hardware and software partners have been getting their houses in to order. Since the driver model s aren’t changing this time around there’s not nearly the kind of churn we saw with Vista. AMD and NVIDIA are the outliers here: they have been pushing out new drivers to support DirectCompute, Media Foundation Transcode, and the other features that are coming with 7 and/or DX11. Anti-virus vendors are the other group that stand to be most affected by the launch of 7, as they have been publishing new versions of their suites that include official support for Windows 7.
Finally, battery life, one of the sore spots with the RC, has finally gotten the kick in the pants we were expecting to see. We’ll get deeper in to this later when we look at benchmarks, but for the time being we’ll note that while the RC offered a battery life similar to Vista, the release version of Windows 7 offers battery life well ahead of Vista in all cases, and depending on the exact hardware used similar to if not better than battery life as compared to XP. It looks like Microsoft and driver authors have finally come through on significantly improving Vista’s lackluster mobile performance.
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Exar3342 - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
Darwinosx: "Is this the new mac operating system?"Apple store employee: "Yes, it is called 'Snow Leopard'".
Darwinosx: "I like cats...this must be the best around because of the cute kitty on the box. I will buy it!"
JimmyJimmington - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
Yup, macs have no security vulnerabilities at all. Exactly.StevoLincolnite - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
MacOSX is far from the best Operating system out there, it has a tiny market share, lacks software/API compatibility, and usually comes with rather antiquated hardware, and cheap plastic looks. (Even the Aluminum bodied ones, look cheap and flimsy to me, despite them being of a solid build).I usually avoid all Articles based around the Mac because it's completely pointless to read, I have never owned a Mac, I never want to own a Mac, I have used a Mac and hated every moment of it, not because of the "Brand" but because I have to "Search" for OSX variations of the software I use, in such a case the Operating system is useless to me.
Windows 7 is awesome, been using it since the early Beta's, It's like a "Fine Wine" version of Vista, it's Vista that got better with age. - I don't expect a Mac user to understand the difference's as they are generally limited in intellectual capability.
******
What I REALLY wanted from this article is Windows 7's performance on something like the Atom 230/330 based processors so we can see how usable the Operating system is on such processors.
darwinosx - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
I didn't say it was the best now did I? But it is certainly better than this band aided and scotch taped version of Vista. I don't have any particular idea of a "best" OS in mind because I work with all of them. I have for 20+ years and I am quite well paid for it. Whereas you still get an allowance from daddy.Market share is no measure of how good something is. That is obvious.
Software/API compatibility? Meaning what exactly? I'd like to hear because I don't think you know.
Tell me one thing that is antiquated about Mac hardware? Plastic? What plastic? Your comments on the unibody are laughable. I'll leave it at that.
Oh you had to "search" for Mac software. That must have been difficult for you.
I understand you are just some teenager who doesn't know anything. But don't think everyone here is the same as you.
B3an - Monday, November 2, 2009 - link
Another moronic Mac user that knows nothing. All your points about about 7 are a joke. Chances are you have not even used it.The only "malware fest" was windows XP. I've used Vista since release with UAC turned off - never got anything.
And yes 7 uses more RAM, as it's a real OS and not a toy, it supports hundreds of thousands of 3rd party hardware and software, it can do a lot more. This tends to increase the complexity of an OS.
If OSX was actually good enough for most people to use, it would be a security mess as hackers would actually bother to attack it, and theres noway it's as secure as Vista or 7 if it came down to that.
Ahmed0 - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
Remember kids, dont put your hands through the cage and dont feed the trolls.Lifted - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
You should stock up on the pads as it looks like you're in for some heavy flow this month ma'am.Sc4freak - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
"But what I don’t get is why there’s any reason good enough for Windows to not come with an email client at all. It’s 2009, why is there an operating system being released without an email client?"But you see, that would be violating anti-competition laws and would reduce consumer choice. Bundling Windows Live Mail is clearly unfair to Mozilla Thunderbird, Opera Mail, and all the other email client providers out there!
Obviously, the solution is that Microsoft must implement a ballot screen into Windows so users can choose whether to use Windows Live Mail or another competing product. Yep.
darwinosx - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
Bundling these apps was only an issue in Europe not in the U.S. It wasn't all of these apps ether. The biggest issue Microsoft regarding bundling is the browser and they still bundle that. So whatever Microsoft reason is for that it had nothing to do with bundling or anti-trust.A bigger question is why in an OS released in 2009 do you still need to manually defrag, still need registry cleaners, layers of anti-malware, and various other 3rd party utilities just to make it usable and semi-reliable? Pretty sad.
ProDigit - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 - link
I prefer to do these things manually!Automatic defrag in Vista and 7 is one of the major reasons for a degrading OS over time (in speed).
I prefer keeping control over many of the 'automatic' services,which somehow always seem to interfere with performance..
Ever played a game,and in the middle noticed a virusscan was happening on the background?
Or what about just silently reading a webpage, on the last of your battery of a laptop, and noticing how the HDD light flickers like crazy, making this annoying HDD sound while you're reading?
Those are the curses of the automatic tasks.
One of the first thing I did with XP and win98, when it got released,was disable the automatic task scheduler!
Some find automatic tasks a blessing, some a curse.
A Defrag on a normal system should be done twice or trice a year, not every day like Vista (provided if you stay above the 20% freespace).