(no subject)
I'm breaking my LJ silence to say one thing.
Despite all the claims on tech blogs, Windows Vista >> Windows XP
What does everyone seem to be ignoring?
The last three features on the Performance Page plus stuff not mentioned on that page.
Superfetch = super hot, having the system put into memory what it knows you're going to need. It knows what you do when you wake the computer up (ie, you always check your email, aim always connects, etc.), so it makes sure those are the things that are loaded into memory first. Also, XP occasionally defragged the things that were used in the first 10 seconds of computer startup. Vista will defrag things that Superfetch says are used a lot. Aside from superfetch on the defrag note, Vista will do a certain amount of automatic defragging when a user is inactive, something XP didn't do.
ReadyBoost = very cool, "expand your memory" by sticking a 2 GB (or other size) flash drive in . . . cool. What's even cooler is that it is going to support internal flash (not on the hard drive, we'll get to that later). This internal flash on the MOBO is (~20x) faster than the flash stuck added on externally, and also is something Vista knows will always be there. So when you hibernate, it knows those 2 gigs will be there when you come back. So rather than having the couple hundred megs that normally would be loaded straight back into memory after leaving hibernate, your system has 2 gigs + a couple hundred megs. hot.
ReadyDrive = this is the flash on the hard drive. This is known as a hybrid hard drive. Again, good stuff goes onto the flash. This reduces the amount of IO on the hard drive, less time with the hard drive spinning fast, increasing battery life, increasing hard drive life, etc.
What's even more exciting in my opinion is not that this will be available on windows, but that this hardware will now be available. And with this hardware available, Linux will begin taking advantage of this (as far as I know, there isn't any (widely) available support of this) and we'll see better performance there as well.
Since I'm now a MacBoy, I'm not supposed to be a hardware junkie, but these improvements in Vista will enable hardware changes that have been held up for years to actually occur on other platforms. These are not new ideas by any means, but the lack of support in Windows meant that hardware vendors weren't going to mass produce the product.
So, thank you Microsoft for these improvements. I look forward to future improvements in Windows and believe you are making huge strides forward, even if other people don't see it.
Reference: a large amount of the writing here came from this video
Despite all the claims on tech blogs, Windows Vista >> Windows XP
What does everyone seem to be ignoring?
The last three features on the Performance Page plus stuff not mentioned on that page.
Superfetch = super hot, having the system put into memory what it knows you're going to need. It knows what you do when you wake the computer up (ie, you always check your email, aim always connects, etc.), so it makes sure those are the things that are loaded into memory first. Also, XP occasionally defragged the things that were used in the first 10 seconds of computer startup. Vista will defrag things that Superfetch says are used a lot. Aside from superfetch on the defrag note, Vista will do a certain amount of automatic defragging when a user is inactive, something XP didn't do.
ReadyBoost = very cool, "expand your memory" by sticking a 2 GB (or other size) flash drive in . . . cool. What's even cooler is that it is going to support internal flash (not on the hard drive, we'll get to that later). This internal flash on the MOBO is (~20x) faster than the flash stuck added on externally, and also is something Vista knows will always be there. So when you hibernate, it knows those 2 gigs will be there when you come back. So rather than having the couple hundred megs that normally would be loaded straight back into memory after leaving hibernate, your system has 2 gigs + a couple hundred megs. hot.
ReadyDrive = this is the flash on the hard drive. This is known as a hybrid hard drive. Again, good stuff goes onto the flash. This reduces the amount of IO on the hard drive, less time with the hard drive spinning fast, increasing battery life, increasing hard drive life, etc.
What's even more exciting in my opinion is not that this will be available on windows, but that this hardware will now be available. And with this hardware available, Linux will begin taking advantage of this (as far as I know, there isn't any (widely) available support of this) and we'll see better performance there as well.
Since I'm now a MacBoy, I'm not supposed to be a hardware junkie, but these improvements in Vista will enable hardware changes that have been held up for years to actually occur on other platforms. These are not new ideas by any means, but the lack of support in Windows meant that hardware vendors weren't going to mass produce the product.
So, thank you Microsoft for these improvements. I look forward to future improvements in Windows and believe you are making huge strides forward, even if other people don't see it.
Reference: a large amount of the writing here came from this video