Anyway around Vista suckiness?

OK, so before I bought a new laptop last Fall, I thought that all the griping about Vista was from overly particular techies, like arguments over AMD vs. Intel, which don't really effect basic users such as myself. My functioning is pretty simple: word processing, photo uploading, internet surfing, music downloading, podcasts, etc. No (real) gaming, no photoshop editing, no autocad, no techie stuff of any sort.

For the first month or two I thought, "Wow, slick. What's the beef? Nothing wrong with this--its like XP, but prettier." But gradually I've been noticing more and more glitches. Nothing major, but it just runs real slow, like a laptop from the 90s, and does stupid things like phantom USB connections, requiring relatively frequent re-installation of USB drivers. But the main thing is just the clunkiness and slowness. I would have thought that with a 2007 laptop I'd be able to jump from Firefox window to a media player to an opened PDF file to Microsoft Word smoothly and quickly. But no. I've even getting some lag-time typing this.

I've heard much worse, obviously. But with a simple rig, simple usage, a newish laptop, I would expect no problems. And so we come the question: Is there anything I can do to limit Vista suckiness? I am tempted to finally defect to Mac, but that is at least a year away. So what to do? Any advice?

 

I think the biggest problem is that your system only has 1GB of RAM. That is barely enough to run the OS, IMHO.

 

It's probably the "1mb" RAM in your signature. Even if you meant 1 gb, that's still not really enough for Vista. Hop over to newegg.com and buy yourself 2 gb. RAM is cheap these days. Also be sure you have SP1 installed.

EDIT: Greg beat me to it.

 

yep, also look to les 's vist atweaks guide. it will make ur comp run alot faster. RAM is needed. ur required to have at leat 2 gb of ram. 3 if u do gaming.

 

The clunkiness may also be attributed to accumulation of unused software and bloat.

 

Get more RAM. Or just go back to XP. Simple as that.

 

1mb of ram is pretty rough. lol

 

About the driver loosing and stuff, I think you should do a clean install with a SP1 media. I had that during the RC2

 

I bought my laptop with 1GB of RAM with the intention of upgrading it myself. The new RAM actually arrived before the laptop, but I briefly used the laptop with the 1GB of RAM+Vista and like the others are suggesting, it just could never cut it. Upgrading your RAM will make all the difference in the world.

Also be sure to do things like disk cleanups and defrags on a regular basis, if you don't already.

 

yeah my fix for vista is a $129.00 OEM Windows XP Pro install disc from NewEgg...

 

Ironically, adding more RAM is much cheaper than downgrading to an old OS.

 

OK, thanks all. It seems like the consensus is more RAM (I do defrags and disk cleanups occasionally, so will do them more often). Why get 2 gb? Wouldn't one more be enough? Also, any specific recommendations or are they all just about the same, so I can get the cheapest?

 

Check what's in there... you may have sticks in both slots, so buying 1x1gb stick would only get you 1.5gb total, which would still be a big improvement but maybe not as much as with 2 gb.

 

Also, how can I make sure the RAM will work on my computer? Can I get a 2 gb stick and place it in with my 1 gb stick?

 

Don't do defrags more, it will not help. Vista does this in the background anyway. Forget about defragging and be happy with the extra time you have.

See this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=121363

 

Go to www.crucial.com they have a RAM scanner app that tells you what you need. And they're probably just as cheap as newegg.com.

And yes if you have 2 slots and one is free you can put a 2gb stick in with your 1gb stick.

 

Windows 7 will hopefully be best of XP + Vista.

That day we ll throw a party on NBR

 

There are single people on these forums that will meet their soul mate, get married, and have a kid before Windows 7 is released.

But I guess some people have all the time in the world for operating systems.

 

But only if you let the machine sit idle for the proper amount of time! The usage pattern many folks have with their laptop doesn't allow this to happen.

You are right though that frequent defrags are not needed or even helpful.

Gary

 

OK, so I did some of the tweaks from that thread, which seemed to help things significantly. I kind of miss Vista Aero's snazziness, but frankly Home Basic is just fine.

As for RAM, I do have two 512mb sticks, so I will probably get two 1gb sticks to replace them, but I might wait a month or two (I'm moving in three weeks, with a new job).

Thanks for the advice.

 

sell the laptop, take a small loss on it, and defect to mac.

for what you want to do, you can get a macbook, it will work perfectly, and it will be fast. also comes with a $50 (or $100?) rebate for a student AND a free ($300) ipod touch.

bounce on that.

 

Short and sweet answer. I wish the thread would have ended here. The last thing we need is another 'Vista sucks' or 'Vista vs. XP' thread.

Like so many have said, get more RAM or just deal with what you have, OP.

 

You should just go with 4 gigs of ram...I think 2 would be more than enough but if you're already upgrading you should go all the way. I know a few days ago I saw 4 gigs (2x2GB) of OCZ ram for $50.

Also, I notice you have a HP. I don't know if you've ever done a clean install but that makes a huge difference too.

 

In the meantime, if you have a flash drive, you can plug that in and use ReadyBoost to help performance a bit.

Really though, it'll be better with the RAM. Even if you can only manage to get 1x1gb stick and run with 1.5gb, that should be a big improvement.

 

How is this done, Swarmer?

 

When you plug in a flash drive it'll probably ask you if you want to use it to increase performance (ReadyBoost). If it doesn't ask, you may have autoplay and/or readyboost turned off... check here: http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/9c3c3ea5-8c11-5ce0-e18d-87d1ce19460d1033.mspx

But from what I've heard, it doesn't make a significant difference if you already have 2 gb RAM... but it should help for people with 1 gb or less.

 

RAM is so cheap now man. Get a 2 GB stick and a 1 GB stick for a total of 3 GB! The best performance! why get 2 GB then have to upgrade in the future?

 

Vista 32 bit will only utilize 3.2 GB. It's an OS limitation

3 GB is the best bet for Vista

 

It doesn't matter much. 2 gb is fine: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=282
More is fine too. Whatever.
As long as you have enough. But 1 gb is not enough.
So get more.

 

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000811.html

Microsoft does code Vista x86 to a limit of 4GB, regardless of whether you try to sidestep it with PAE and more RAM. PAE is an odd hack at the hardware level that not all drivers and applications are friendly with, and there's a performance hit for using it as well. It's no big surprise that if you want to use more than 4GB of RAM MS intends you to go X64 which does not have these problems.

(MS's 32-bit mid and higher-end server OSs are able to use more RAM with PAE but it's still not the best solution)

 

Apparently, as I've learned here in the last few days, this is not just a 32-bit limitation. If you have an older chipset, even if you have a 64-bit OS, your system will only use about 3.2GBs of RAM. Your operating system will be able to see all 4GBs but will not be able to use all of it. They don't tell you that when you read that your system is capable of being upgraded to 4GBs. You've gotta love marketing.

 

Very very tempting, especially considering I am getting a teaching job this year, and that I am shopping for a (cheaper) mp3 player.

That said, I'm going to have to pass for now. If I got the Macbook I'd go for the black one and even with the education discount it is $1400. I can't afford that now, even if I sold my current rig for a few hundred bucks. I'm going to wait at least another year and then who knows what will be available. Plus I do like my Pavilion, which I have only had for about eight months. Usually it takes me at least a year and half to start itching for a new laptop and then, on principle if nothing else, I like to wait two years, preferrably three+ total before buying a new one.

Again, consensus is clear: MORE RAM. OK, OK, I hear y'all ;-) Seems like the best bet would be to find a 2GB stick so that I have 2.5gb. More than enough for my usage.

 

Thats the bloody cheapest solution!!!

BTW, worked on both 10.4&10.5 and Vista, I see Vista running much faster given the same hardware.

 

SP1 vista surprised me. After installation, It booted painfully slow for the first few boots. Then all of the sudden, Vista booted faster than a fresh install of XP. Somehow it just optimized itself.

 

Welcome to progress!

 

No offense, but I didn't truly know what a fanboy was until I started reading a lot of your posts about Vista. It's like you're on a personal mission to convert everyone. Is there anything wrong with anyone who chooses to stick with XP? Was your experience with XP that bad? I'm really not trying to attack you in any way. I'm just trying to understand.

 

I think the people who have positive views about Vista should be loud about it to counteract the overwhelming negativity.

 

Lol, you always make me laugh, I guess that's the reason why I talk about Vista.

Don't forget, I also have one Laptop with XP and is working well, but like an old dog, soon it will have to go, yes we do get attached to it, but you must remain objective, and always make way to progress

 

Exactly how is a comment on how SP1 improved someone's boot time as being a sign of progress equate to a slam on XP??

Gary

 

Gary, I was not referring to his comment in this thread alone. If you look at his history and some of the other threads, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Oh, I understand that. However, there is a fine line and I was simply remarking that I'm beginning to understand why the term "fanboy" exists.

I'm glad you took it in stride. I really was not personally attacking you.

 

Well, someone needs to defend both sides .... I personally like having Windows with my Linux in my alphabet soup.

 

I'm just quoting someone words regarding some Vista SP1 improvements:

Adds support for Direct3D® 10.1, an update to Direct3D 10 that extends the API to support new hardware features, enabling 3D application and game developers to make more complete and efficient use of the upcoming generations of graphics hardware.

Addresses issues many of the most common causes of crashes and hangs in Windows Vista, as reported by Windows Error Reporting. These include issues relating to Windows Calendar, Windows Media Player, and a number of drivers included with Windows Vista.

An improved SRT (Startup Repair Tool), which is part of the Windows Recovery environment (WinRE), can now fix PCs unbootable due to certain missing OS files.

Adds full support for the latest IEEE draft of 802.11n wireless networking.
Improves OS deployment by enabling 64-bit versions of Windows Vista to be installed from a 32-bit OS. This will allow IT professionals to maintain just a single WinPE image.

Improves patch deployment by retrying failed updates in cases where multiple updates are pending and the failure of one update causes other updates to fail as well.

Enables reliable OS installation by optimizing OS installers so that they are run only when required during patch installation. Fewer installers operating results in fewer points of potential failure during installation, which leads to more robust and reliable installation.

Improves overall install time for updates by optimizing the query for installed OS updates.

Improved instrumentation allows additional data to be sent to Microsoft via the CEIP (Customer Experience Improvement Program) when enabled. This telemetry data led to the identification of numerous issues that are addressed in SP1 and resulted in improvement in the reliability of OS servicing.

SP1 reduces the number of UAC (User Account Control) prompts from 4 to 1 when creating or renaming a folder at a protected location.

Improvements in the Licensing User Interface and User Experience including more details in the help about activation and what happens if user does not activate; more detailed and descriptive dialog text; raw error codes replaced with easily comprehensible text.

While not reflected in the initial release candidate this week, we will also be making changes effective with SP1 in how we differentiate the experience customers have using non-genuine versions of our software. This is based on feedback we heard from volume license customers in particular as part of our Windows Genuine Advantage program.

Improves the performance of browsing network file shares by consuming less bandwidth.

Improves power consumption and battery life by addressing an issue that causes a hard disk to continue spinning when it should spin down, in certain circumstances.

Improves the speed of adding and extracting files to and from a compressed (zipped) folder.

Significantly improves the speed of moving a directory with many files underneath.

Improves performance while copying files using BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service).

Improves performance over Windows Vista’s current performance across the following scenarios1:
25% faster when copying files locally on the same disk on the same machine
45% faster when copying files from a remote non-Windows Vista system to a SP1 system
50% faster when copying files from a remote SP1 system to a local SP1 system

Improves the time to read large images by approximately 50%.

Improves IE performance on certain Jscript intensive websites, bringing performance in line with previous IE releases.

Improves responsiveness when doing many kinds of file or media manipulations. For example, with Windows Vista today, copying files after deleting a different set of files can make the copy operation take longer than needed. In SP1, the file copy time is the same as if no files were initially deleted.

Addresses a problem that caused a delay of up to 5 minutes after boot with specific ReadyDrive capable hard drives.

Improves the effectiveness of a Windows ReadyBoost™ device in reducing the time to resume from standby and hibernate by increasing the amount of data stored in the ReadyBoost device that can be used during a resume cycle.

Includes improvements to Windows Superfetch™ that help to further improve resume times, in many environments.

In specific scenarios, SP1 reduces the shutdown time by a few seconds by improving the Windows Vista utility designed to sync a mobile device.
Improves the time to resume from standby for a certain class of USB Hubs by approximately 18%.

Improves network connection scenarios by updating the logic that auto selects which network interface to use (e.g., should a laptop use wireless or wired networking when both are available).

Reduces the time it takes to return to the user’s session when using the Photo screensaver, making it comparable to other screensavers.
Removes the delay that sometimes occurs when a user unlocks their PC.
Improves overall media performance by reducing many glitches.
Windows Vista SP1 includes a new compression algorithm for the RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) that helps reduce network bandwidth required to send bitmaps or images via RDP. The compression, which can be selected by administrators via Group Policy settings, is transparent to all RDP traffic, and typically reduces the size of the RDP stream by as much as 25-60%, based on preliminary test results.

Microsoft also lists a bunch of other improvements. If you want to get it directly from the horse’s mouth, please follow this link. And then download the file named: Notable_Changes_in_Windows_Vista_SP1_ Release _Candidate.doc

 

If you are going to quote someone else's words, then you need to give credit to them. Otherwise it's called plagiarism.

 

^ Wirelessman, I think that you didn't get what Gary said.

 

Plagiarism definition:
stealing somebody's work or idea: the process of copying another person's idea or written work and claiming it as original


I have never said the work was mine, I very clearly said that I was quoting someone else words.

I would mention his name if I knew it. Please fine here below the link.

http://dataland.wordpress.com/2007/12/10/vista-sp1-improvements/

 

I most likely did, can you please kindly explain it to me, please?

 

And the claws come out!!

 

Yep, what a surprise, I never saw it coming, never.

 

Fight!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Fight!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Fight!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Fight!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Fight!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Wirelessman,

Go back and read the first three parts of the exchage again. (Quoted here so you don't have to go back and find them.) I was DEFENDING your comment. When THAANSA3 jumped on your reply of "Welcome to progresss!" as a slam on XP. I asked THAANSA3, how your comment could possibly be construed as a slam on XP. Clearly your reply was that dmacfour was just seeing the progress that SP1 offered.

Gary