Windows 7 build 7048 vs. Windows 7 beta 1 vs. Vista vs. XP performance shootout March 13, 2009

Hey all,

Well, it seems as though Adrian Kingsley-hughes of ZDNet.com has done it again. He has benchmarked the above named Windows OS’s and Build against each other in a thorough way.

Lets see who the winner is shall we:

Tests run on a very capable machine — LINK

Tests run on a moderately capable machine — LINK

It seems as though the latest build of Windows 7 is the best on the more capable machine running as a 64-bit operating system.

However, on the moderately capable machine it seems as though Windows Vista SP1 is best suited there.

Bye!

Been waiting for Vista SP1? Well, wait no more!!! March 19, 2008

It seems as though Microsoft finally managed to bundle the whole of SP1 together properly and have FINALLY released their service pack for Vista officially. Not by accident or a leak or a hack or a torrent or… anything else, but through Windows Update.

Amazon have declared that they will start selling Vista with the new SP very shortly.

So if you want this new service pack, the Guardian says:

“You can get the SP1 download here (32-bit x86) or here (64-bit) – though if you’re updating just one computer it’s better to use Windows Update. Sizes are 434MB for the x86 version, 760MB (or so) for the 64-bit one.”

So that wraps it up all nicely. SP1 is up for grabs =D

Seems like TechNet and MSDN subscribers are lucky yet again! March 1, 2008

Well earlier on in February, full subscribers to TechNet [£300+] and/or MSDN [£600+] were able to get their hand on the first service pack for Vista [SP1] before any other Vista users. Unless you count in all those who got an accidental release from Microsoft or the ones who hacked Windows Update in order to get it.

 Well anyways, it seems as though these rich subscribers yet again get the upper hand as now not only can they get the Update, but they can get the SlipStream version allowing them to make their very own Vista SP1 DVD’s.

For those of you who do not know what this is, let me explain.
When updating to a new SP, some people prefer reinstalling the whole of their OS and then installing the SP as it seems to be a much ‘cleaner’ process. However, it is a little bit long winded if they have to reinstall their OS [clean install] and then download the update and then install that. What slipstreaming allows people to do is rip their Vista DVD onto their computer and then with the Slipstream download, they can install the upgrade into the folder where they ripped Vista in the first place. Once this is done, they can burn the patched version of the ripped vista onto another DVD and there you have it, your very own slipstreamed Vista SP1.

Coming back to the initial point, we regular folks have to wait until the public slipstreamed image is available, which might me another couple weeks or so. =[

Vista RTM & SP1 put to the Office Test February 27, 2008

Adrian Kingsley-hughes of ZDNet blogged a benchmarking test of bothe Vista RTM and SP1 when trying to run various tasks in Office 2007 Professional using scripts [from OfficeBench].

He used a pretty good computer with high specs:
 - Phenom 9700, Radeon 3850 graphics card, 2GB of RAM
which shows that the machine is not incapable of running Vista or Office.

The results are as follows:

	Time to execute test scripts (sec) -No load	Time to execute test scripts (sec) -Load
Vista RTM	265.83	271.06
Vista SP1	273.76	273.97

It seems as though SP1 has brought quite a significant slow down when using Office with no-load as there is an 8 second delay, but Adrian assures us that this will not affect the everyday user of Office. We also see that SP1 remians fairly consistent as it takes roughly 273 secs both times which isnt a bad thing.

So, for those of you who were scared SP1 may slow down your Office running times, dont worry and for those of you who had hoped for a better performance, tough luck.

N.B. In the second set of results for both RTM and SP1, the ‘load’ was just a small video running in the background by the script.

 

Windows Vista SP1 – I have it =] February 22, 2008

As many of you ‘may’ know, Microsoft has been working on the latest service pack [SP1] for its latest OS [Vista].

This seems to be a highly anticipated update as it includes many bug fixes and minor UI improvements but most of all has changed its Kernel to that of Server 2008 rather than the standing Server 2003 Kernel. Now I’m not exactly sure how much of a difference this is [as i dont know the kernel well - no-one really does] but the next main improvement is that the transferring of files has been improved greatly.

There have been problems reported of beta testers having to reinstall some drivers after the installation of SP1 RC and therefore since the RTM was made ready on February 4th 2008, Microsoft said they would release the update publicly in Mid-March 08.

However, I have managed to find a way around getting the RTM version of the SP and although I am still waiting to see the differences, it feels good to know I have the latest and supposedly greatest version of Vista so far =]

Comment if you would like to know how =P