Big Update for Vista Leaves Little Changed for Mainstream Users
February 14, 2008
by Walter S. Mossberg
Microsoft plans next month to roll out the first major update to its Windows Vista operating system, which was introduced in January 2007. There have been a number of smaller patches to Vista, but this one, called Service Pack 1, is pretty large, a 65-megabyte download, and includes hundreds of small fixes and improvements, including some performance gains.
The arrival of a large update like this isn’t a sign of trouble, or even unusual. Microsoft has routinely issued these large “service packs” periodically for Windows. And just this week, its competitor, Apple, unleashed an even larger update for its new operating system, Leopard.
Even though they can take a long time to download and install, such updates are generally a good thing for consumers. Microsoft will automatically deliver SP1, as the company calls it, through its normal updating mechanism, built into Windows. The update is free.
However, based on my tests of Vista SP1, I believe that for most average consumers, it will likely be a nonevent, and for others it will be disappointing. Many of its benefits are aimed at corporations and power users, or are under-the-hood fixes that are hard to discern. For mainstream users, it adds no significant, visible features to Vista, and changes little or nothing about the way the operating system looks and works.
Also, SP1 doesn’t resolve some of the most annoying flaws in Vista, including slow start-ups and reboots, and a security system that nags you too much and requires add-on anti-virus software. I guess these problems will either never be fixed fully or will have to wait for SP2.
While Vista SP1 does deliver some performance improvements in certain scenarios, it can actually temporarily degrade performance — including making reboots even slower — because of a quirk in the update process. This slowdown should go away in a few days, the company says.
On balance, the update is probably worth installing, especially since Microsoft will deliver it automatically. But I wouldn’t rush to grab it and I wouldn’t expect much from it. One note: you can’t install SP1 until you have installed a couple of other patches first. These will also be distributed automatically.
I installed Vista SP1 on two computers that had come with the original Vista preinstalled: a 10-month-old Sony Vaio SZ laptop and a two-month-old Dell XPS One desktop. Because the automatic download distribution isn’t yet in place, Microsoft sent me the update on a disk, which also included the prerequisite patches. In each case, the upgrade took a little over an hour and went smoothly. During the process, the computers rebooted multiple times, but it was all automatic and didn’t require user intervention.
After the installation, the computers functioned normally. I tested three of the performance improvements Microsoft claims for SP1. The first involved speeding up the copying of hefty folders containing large numbers of files. On both machines, copying a folder containing over 700 files totaling almost 700 megabytes took less than half as long with SP1 as it had with the original Vista.
I also tested how long it took both machines to awaken from a hibernation or sleep state and be ready for work. For these tests, I began with each machine running Microsoft Word, Microsoft Outlook and the Firefox Web browser, then I forced them into sleep and hibernation mode.
By my definition, “ready for work” means that Vista’s circular delay indicator has gone away, the software that loads at start-up has finished launching and the computer has fully reconnected to its wired or wireless network. On both of my test machines, SP1 improved the recovery time from sleep or hibernation, shaving one to 10 seconds from the procedures.
Microsoft doesn’t claim SP1 will improve the speed of cold starts and reboots under Vista, but I tested these anyway. To my horror, I found that SP1 actually made rebooting — already slower than on comparable Windows XP computers or Macintoshes — even slower.
Microsoft explained that this was due to the fact that installing SP1 erases certain data used by Vista to speed up program launching. It takes the system a few days to build this data back up, the company says. Until then, it says, overall performance, including reboots, can be slower under SP1 than under original Vista.
Microsoft provided me with a method that would rebuild this program-launching data more quickly, at least for the common programs I was using in my tests. Once I followed that method, rebooting time returned to its former state — still too slow for my taste, but at least not worse.
In briefing me on SP1, Microsoft made a big point of saying that great progress had been made in the past year in making Vista work properly with add-on devices, such as printers. I tried my 2003-vintage Hewlett-Packard printer, which hadn’t worked properly with the original Vista. It still didn’t work well with SP1.
So, Vista SP1 is a step forward, at least after a few days of use. But it’s not a big step.
Email me at mossberg@wsj.com. Find all my columns and videos online, free, at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.
Comments
Walter,
The plural of the ITALIAN word scenario is scenari, not scenarios.
Proper grammar would be appreciated.
thanks,
Posted by Dave Barnes at February 13th, 2008 at 7:20 pmdave
@Dave: Your comment might be relevant if the post was written in Italian. You might notice it’s written in English, where the plural of scenario is scenarios (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/scenario)
@Walt: Great post! Have you noticed any problems that would prevent you from recommending installing SP1 at this stage?
Posted by Owen Cutajar at February 14th, 2008 at 1:35 amSo, no Vista for me for years to come. I’m still running 2000. I don’t like the idea of being forced to have anti-virus software, even though I run Comodo.
I know one of these days I’ll be forced to upgrade to XP…
Posted by Samantha West at February 14th, 2008 at 4:37 amHi Walt, this is my first time posting here, but have been a long time reader (loved your interview to Steve Jobs and Bill Gates last year by the way).
Posted by Andres Reitze at February 14th, 2008 at 6:11 amI have vista home basic, it came with my dell. My computer runs great, really stable, everything works, but that was only afer i installed the RC1 of SP1 I belive it was in Dec 07. Should I have to do something with this RC1 or will MS update mechanisim take care of it for me and just install what ever is new?
Slow file copy, endless “calculating time to copy” window have been my problem before I downgraded back to XP. Did SP1 fixed this issue?
Posted by Emre Aydinceren at February 14th, 2008 at 7:20 amI think I lot of this time stuff with Vista is just so much ca-ca.
In the real world, people don’t go out and buy a new Vista machine and a new XP machine, really the same machine, all at the same time.
I replaced my Dell Inspiron 8000 with a XPS M1710. So I went from a PIII 1 gig approx CPU, a 133 FSB and 512 megs of DRAM, to a Core 2 Duo 2.0 gig CPU, a 633 FSB, and 2 gigs of DDR2 (I think) DRAM.
I did the same sort of thing replacing a Dell Dimension 4100 with a Dell XPS 410, a little faster CPU on the 410 than the M1710.
Are you going to tell me that I did not get a huge gain?
This is much more the reality in personal computing and also in at least small and medium size businesses.
Wit zero complaints about older periferals no being up to snuff
Posted by Richard Mitnick at February 14th, 2008 at 11:58 amwith all of their bells and whistles, I just do not get all of the griping.
Regarding Vista SP1, there is a necesary prior update KB937287 which is giving many people fits.
There is a valid work around at
Posted by Richard Mitnick at February 15th, 2008 at 9:22 amhttp://forums.microsoft.com/Te.....;SiteID=17
Hello, Walt!
Would you mind sharing the steps Microsoft shared with you on how to speed up the boot times after certain cached data has been erased?
Thank you!
~Ibrahim~
Posted by Ibrahim Jadoon at February 15th, 2008 at 8:00 pmWalt, to summarize — large files copied in half the time as before, and waking from hibernation was up to 10 seconds faster, but no visible speed improvement from a cold start. So the only real complaint in your article is that your HP printer still doesn’t work – which is an HP issue, not Microsoft’s, for not providing proper printer drivers. So what’s your beef?
As an aside, I would suggest providing people to a link to read what Vista SP1 does and does not include. Perhaps a link like this one from the Microsoft Vista Team Blog:
Posted by Kevin Weilbacher at February 17th, 2008 at 5:19 amhttp://windowsvistablog.com/bl.....a-sp1.aspx
I find this particularly misleading “under-the-hood fixes that are hard to discern.”
Let’s assume for a moment someone didn’t keep pace with the hotfixes over the course of the year — or hasn’t tried Vista because they were (rightfully) frustrated with the state of the OS. Put those fixes together, and you sure as heck are going to discern something.
To stretch your car metaphor a little bit, you don’t notice things under the hood unless they’re broken.
I test a LOT of hardware as a musician — more than the typical tech journalist — and found all kinds of gear refused to install even with functioning Vista drivers available. That situation has changed. So has graphics performance, overall stability, and many other details. Some of these details are available in hotfixe, others are not. But generally I think it’s the journalist’s job to “discern” what’s going on even if an individual mainstream user can’t — because many *other* mainstream users are going to be painfully aware of whether or not things work.
Beyond that, the only criticisms here I can find seem to be boot/reboot time — which is significantly faster on every machine I’ve tested than XP.
Nagging security — I agree with you there. It’s absolutely apalling that UAC is as painful as it is.
But “mainstream” or not, users need some level of detail about what will impact them, not just generalizations. (Steps? Bigger steps? Bigger steps in Leopard’s point release, a totally different OS? I’m lost.)
Posted by Peter Kirn at March 15th, 2008 at 7:27 am