PDC 2009: Scuttling huge chunks of Vista architecture for a faster Windows 7
The reason Windows Vista seemed slow, and somehow, strangely seemed even slower over time, is now abundantly clear to Microsoft's architects: The evolution of computer hardware, particularly the CPU, exceeded anyone's expectations at the time of Vista's premiere in early 2007. But the surge in virtualization, coupled with the rise of the multicore era, produced a new reality where suddenly Vista found itself managing systems with more than 64 total cores.
Architects had simply not anticipated that the operating system would be managing this many cores, this soon -- at least, that appears to be the underlying message we're receiving here at PDC 2009 in Los Angeles. As independent scientists were speculating about possible performance drop-offs after 8 cores, server administrators were already seeing it. There were design tradeoffs for Windows Vista -- tradeoffs in efficiencies that could have been obtained through complex methods, for simplicity.
PDC 2009 Day 0: Vista is through
The architects who redeveloped the thread scheduling system for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 realized that during the Vista era, they made some design decisions in favor of simplicity, especially for developers. But that simplicity came with a performance hit, especially from processes running in multicore processors -- the more the cores, the bigger the hit.
We all saw that with Vista. In overcoming these deficiencies, it's apparent from listening to the architects themselves, speaking on "Day 0" of PDC 2009 in Los Angeles (the day before the big keynotes), that they had come to loathe Vista's problems just as much as everyday users.
Bad Vista-to-Windows 7 upgrade experiences #2: No TV in Media Center
Typically when you upgrade a computer from one operating system to the very next level up, you don't want the new system replacing or deleting anything without your knowledge and approval. Windows 7 thus far seems to be quite good on this score. But perhaps it's too good in the case of its new and somewhat enhanced Windows Media Center, whose new reliance on an upstream recording prevention mechanism that's part of its PlayReady scheme, among other things, renders obsolete Vista's media settings.
As a result, if you have a TV tuner in your Vista-based PC, and you follow all the instructions for migrating to Win7, the new Media Center could insist you don't have a TV there at all. Betanews was able to reconstruct the conditions of a situation some upgraders are reporting where their built-in tuners disappear. Luckily, we also have a solution to the problem that worked for us, and that may hopefully work for you if you're in similar circumstances.
But let's concede right off the bat, it's not an easy or intuitive solution, so don't blame yourself thinking there's something you missed.
Bad Vista-to-Windows 7 upgrade experiences #1: 'Hosed' Intel SSDs
Although we had good reason to expect that most folks' experiences with Windows 7 upgrades this past week would be, as we put it, "without the crap," the exceptions are starting to show up. One of the more serious cases involves Intel, which has withdrawn its latest solid-state drive firmware update after multiple reports from disgruntled users of complete storage system failure following their Windows 7 upgrades.
The new firmware, along with Windows 7, was supposed to support a new internal file management methodology called TRIM. Its purpose was to compensate for a problem typical of memory-based storage, as opposed to traditional magnetic disks: Since memory systems must keep track of their contents even some of those contents aren't really in use, over time, SSDs' performance can lag. While traditional disks don't have to retain a memory of the contents of sectors pointing to "deleted" files, SSDs do...and they can't wipe the contents of those sectors individually. Instead, they have to wait until entire blocks become disused -- which happens less and less often as drives become more and more fragmented. TRIM was supposed to overcome that deficiency with a kind of self-optimizing mechanism, letting SSDs wipe blocks more often, thus overcoming lags and keeping performance levels high over time.
Microsoft wins round one in its battle against Vista
Anyone who would continue to frame the consumer PC market in 1980s terms, as a continuance of the old war between Microsoft and Apple, would be sorely disappointed by this morning's earnings news from Microsoft. The measured candor that continues to emerge from CFO Chris Liddell suggests that Macintosh and iPhone are not even on the company's radar at the moment, and that his real battle is against a tougher and more menacing foe: Vista.
As of yesterday, it was officially okay for Microsoft to pronounce Vista part of its past, to "un-support" it from a marketing standpoint (though certainly not from a service standpoint). Steering Microsoft clear of the perfect storm -- the effects of the global recession, coupled with the peak in negative attitude toward Vista -- means putting Vista behind it, placing it in the adversarial role normally characterized by someone who looks a lot more like Justin Long than John Hodgman.
Windows 7: Vista without the crap
Download Microsoft Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor 2.0 from Fileforum now.
Here is the essential information you need to know if you're a Windows Vista user considering whether to upgrade to Windows 7: Yes.
No, Windows 7 isn't slower than Vista, even at booting up
The manufacturer of a Windows maintenance toolkit featured on our Fileforum told CNET's Ina Fried last week that it believes boot times for Windows 7 are typically slower than boot times for Windows Vista. Iolo Technologies told Fried that it gauged the amount of time required for the CPU to reach a "true idle state."
As many veteran Windows users already know, the operating system doesn't actually boot to an "idle state" -- it's not DOS. Since that time, Iolo has been characterizing the time it stops its stopwatch as the time that the CPU is "fully usable," which seems rather nebulous.
Windows 7 OEM price even cheaper if you get Vista Upgrade first
Microsoft: SMB 2.0 hole does affect Vista, not Windows 7
A security advisory issued by Microsoft late yesterday takes to task a security consultant for a British ISP who apparently, and possibly even accidentally, discovered a way that the Server Message Block 2.0 driver can trigger an instant Windows crash. Rather than report the incident directly to Microsoft, Laurent Gaffié went public with his findings first, in such a way that appears to have triggered the enthusiasm of the black-hat side of the security community.
"Microsoft is concerned that this new report of a vulnerability was not responsibly disclosed, potentially putting computer users at risk," reads yesterday's Security Advisory 975497. "We continue to encourage responsible disclosure of vulnerabilities. We believe the commonly accepted practice of reporting vulnerabilities directly to a vendor serves everyone's best interests."
Vista SMB 2.0 exploitable hole points to need for new filters
Nearly two years ago, I proclaimed Microsoft's adoption of Server Message Block version 2 the #6 of ten best new features of Windows Server 2008. Essentially, it provides a way for servers utilizing the Common Internet File System to utilize modern filing tools such as symbolic links and transaction batches, to expedite the process of sending large files over the Internet.
It has taken this long for anyone to find what was described earlier today as a glaring hole in Windows SMB 2.0 security, but it's an embarrassing little hole nonetheless: A security researcher discovered that if you get the order of the words in the SMB 2.0 message headers wrong, in such a way that you end up sending an ampersand (&), where a zero should be in the high word of the Process ID field, then you can end up sending a message block that could literally crash the remote recipient. Conceivably, an exploit could be crafted that could remotely crash a Vista-based client.
Not just Vista: The operating system is dying, too
Okay, so I raised a bit of a stink with last Friday's Wide Angle Zoom. So to make sure my position on Vista, operating systems, Microsoft and the future of the technological world under President Barack Obama's leadership are completely understood, I wanted to address some of the more...ah, pointed perspectives from the Comments section. I've paraphrased the wordings to protect the innocent. Here goes:
Vista is a great operating system. There's nothing wrong with it.
Vista's dead: Microsoft kills an OS and no one cares
For anyone still burning a torch for Windows Vista, its time is rapidly approaching. Buy now or forever hold your peace.
I can't say I'm surprised at how any of this has turned out. After all, Vista's launch was, to be charitable, rocky. When it first arrived just before Christmas 2006, it was late, bloated and, for some, expensive. It may have looked pretty on the outside, but critics quickly pounced on it for driver incompatibility, sluggish performance on mainstream -- and sometimes even high-end -- hardware and enough bugs to fill a family-sized tent on a weekend camping expedition. Microsoft didn't help matters with its ill-fated "Vista Capable" designation -- a public relations debacle that convinced buyers who were too lazy to read the fine print that Vista would run just as well on hardware barely suited for XP.
Microsoft: Europe customers must wait to upgrade Vista to Windows 7
Microsoft spokespersons have confirmed to Betanews, contrary to press reports earlier today, that at some point it does plan to provide European customers with a Windows 7E upgrade package -- a way to upgrade Vista installations to Windows 7, while enabling customers to leave out Internet Explorer 8. In all cases, that means uninstalling IE from Vista, which current builds of the Win7 upgrade are not capable of doing.
"As part of Microsoft's decision to offer Windows 7 without a browser in the [European Economic Area], we also had another hard decision to make: Offer both Full and Upgrade retail packaged product and delay the entry of Windows 7 into market, or not offer the Upgrade packaged product at launch," the spokesperson told Betanews. "At this time, we will not offer an Upgrade packaged product in Europe, but in a way that does not penalize our customers."
New Vista buyers can expect to pay more for Windows 7
After considerable confusion over whether Microsoft will offer free upgrades to Windows 7 for new PC buyers who find Windows Vista pre-installed, in an announcement this morning that required clarification, some confirmations, and a bit of editing, the company stated that it is leaving it up to PC manufacturers to determine how customers will get Windows 7 upgrades, and how much they'll cost.
Customers who already have Windows Vista on their PCs, Microsoft confirmed to Betanews this morning, can order upgrades to Windows 7 through Microsoft, but will pay full price to do so. Upgrading to Win7 Home Premium will cost about $10 less than upgrading to Vista Home Premium, however -- a difference between $129.95 for Vista and $119.99 for Win7. Upgrades to the Professional and Ultimate SKUs of Win7 will cost 4¢ more than did the corresponding upgrades to the Business and Ultimate SKUs of Vista -- $199.99 and $219.99, respectively. And the full retail prices for Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate will be in alignment with the existing prices for Vista Home Basic (not Premium), Business, and Ultimate SKUs, except their MSRPs will now end in ".99" rather than ".95."
Tracking Vista's elusive 'Black Screen of Death'
What we've been calling a "perception problem" with Windows Vista -- the notion that users may tend to think it's less secure or reliable than it has proven to be on a large scale -- isn't just about perception for users faced with severe unreliability issues. As a Windows user for over two decades, I have been to the far depths of unreliability, and have lived to tell the tale. Probing the problems with Windows is actually part of my job, and one reason I actually am a Windows user -- unlike the rest of the world.
Yesterday, a problem that's far beyond perception afflicted a 64-bit Vista SP2-based Betanews production system for the fourth time in a year, this time with the remedy being so far out and unusual that everyday users could not possibly have discovered it by normal means. As we've found out, it's a problem that has affected a small number of Vista users since the system's debut three years ago, though that number appears to be growing steadily just as Vista is preparing to vacate the spotlight for Windows 7.
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