Downgrading to XP from Vista is what the customer wants
September 22 Robert Park
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I bought a new laptop for my dad a little while ago. Works okay. Like many laptops, it came standard configuration with 1 GB. I decided to order 2 GB, for the heck of it. Besides, it came with Vista. Now, I’ve heard the stories that Vista was a resource hog, and I’ve refused to install it because XP works fine for me, thank you very much. All of the cool features that Vista boasted, I couldn’t see myself needing any of them. And who wants an operating system that’s a big resource hog?
So boot up my dad’s computer, and behold, a check in the system resources shows that Vista is using 750 MB of RAM. You gotta be kidding me. Almost every laptop configuration I see on the market is standard 1 GB and comes with Vista. So basically, the standard laptop has only 250 MB to run whatever applications you want to run. That’s sad. It’s a step back after laptops have come so far in becoming desktop replacements for many people.
Well, customers of course hate that. We want our computers to run as efficiently as possible, since a slow computer is a bane to use. Word’s getting out there that Microsoft allows for people to downgrade pre-loaded Vista installations to XP. Customers have been calling for it.
Microsoft basically took the PS3 approach with Vista. Cram in as many features as possible, make the graphics as pretty as possible, and people will run to it like they run to Santa Claus. Not away from it, like they would from Jabba the Hutt. Of course, we know where that strategy left Sony. Microsoft will hopefully learn the lesson too. What makes an operating system great is efficient usability. If your computer’s UI is really pretty, but you can’t really run anything on it, what’s the point? Cut out the bloat, give us the basic functionality, and let us figure out what we want to do with it.
Of course, it usually takes Microsoft several years and millions of dollars of development to get it right, if you look at their track record with any of their products (don’t even get me started on Zune, let alone Windows 95). Here’s hoping.
Filed under: PC Software
http://www.bit-tech.net/columns/2007/08/19/chicks_dig_ram/1
People just aren’t happy unless they’ve got something to complain about.
Hm, there is a strange thing about us people. Sometimes we tend to stick with the high maintenance things, believing that they offer great value because they ask so much. Just give it a little thought.
goty, I get what he’s saying, but what I’m saying is that this is a very traditional mindset for developing software. It’s like starving for a month, and then eating an entire buffet before you starve for another month. People aren’t bears.
I explain why I don’t think this software development model doesn’t work anymore at the link below. Software has become so complex that even the smartest and best teams of programmers are facing inevitable failure.
http://www.hardcoreware.net/microsoft-patent-threats-why-open-source-is-finally-changing-the-game/
I think you may be a bit confused by the way that Vista manages memory. The memory management system in Vista is completely new it is actually designed to fill almost all memory on any system all the time. It does this by caching data from the hard drive that you use frequently (Superfetch). This can speed up drive access because it is cached in RAM (especially if you have a lot of RAM).
You can’t use the free ram displayed in the task manager as a metric to the amount of RAM that is free for use. When more memory is requested windows pages off the cache to virtual memory (or a readyboost flash drive) to free physical memory.
The best way to judge subjective performance is to use the machine for about week to see how it works. I have used Vista on a Athlon XP 2500+ with 1GB of RAM and found it very responsive.
I am not saying Vista is not more resource intensive than XP (because it obviously is). Just that the metric you are useing to measure RAM useage does not mean anything. Even on systems with 4GB+ the memory usage will be constantly 90%+.
If you feel like reading about this.
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=2163
Cool, that’s really informative, thanks.
So basically, all we need is a better way of displaying and understanding how the memory is being used. I’d be awfully curious to see how big Vista’s cache was in memory at any given time. If that kind of feature is already available, I’m sure I’ll find it soon enough. Thanks for the tip.
I still don’t like AeroGlass, but that’s a personal preference. ;)