Another Vista Slowness

[Val]

In Win Mail, marking all newsgroup headers as read is inordinately slower
than in OE.

Two examples.

this newsgroup, today had about 550 messages when I checked it. In OE, took
about 2-3 seconds to Mark All Read. Win Mail took about 16 seconds. (both
the XP and Vista machines had about the same number of previously marked
read headers hidden)

Opened up the ....vista.mail newsgroup for first time, grabbed 33K+ new
headers. To mark all in OE - 16 seconds, in Win Mail - 50 seconds.

Oh well, maybe SP1 will fix this as well?

Val
(not holding my breath)

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

Val;
Be careful of what you expect in a Service Pack.
Certainly the Updates will be incorporated.
Also possibly some drivers if the hardware manufacturers have taken
the appropriate steps for inclusion.
Not much else can be expected in any Service Pack.

For Windows Mail issues, look for fixes in the next version of the
mail program rather than the Vista Service Pack.

 

[Charlie Tame]

In Win Mail, marking all newsgroup headers as read is inordinately slower
than in OE.

Two examples.

this newsgroup, today had about 550 messages when I checked it. In OE, took
about 2-3 seconds to Mark All Read. Win Mail took about 16 seconds. (both
the XP and Vista machines had about the same number of previously marked
read headers hidden)

Opened up the ....vista.mail newsgroup for first time, grabbed 33K+ new
headers. To mark all in OE - 16 seconds, in Win Mail - 50 seconds.

Oh well, maybe SP1 will fix this as well?

Val
(not holding my breath)

You will notice from this post's headers that I've taken to reading
newsgroups using Debian Linux and IceDove which is basically
Thunderbird. This is for the same reasons you state above

I have the luxury of a couple of brand new machines with removable
drives so it is easy to set things up roughly the same and make comparisons.

Newsgroups / Email with Vista is now not possible because they broke the
mail system and my own mail server and my ISP's mail server can't talk
to it, but with the last incarnation of Live Mail Desktop that worked it
was APPALLING, taking anything up to 15 minutes to mark a large group
like this one as read.

Same hardware with WLMD as above around 10 minutes.

Same hardware with Vista and Thunderbird < a minute.

Same hardware with XP and Thunderbird < 30 seconds

Same hardware with XP and OE < 30 seconds.

Same hardware with Debian Linux and IceDove (Thunderbird) < 10 seconds.

THese are approximate, obviously the number of posts between disk swaps
varied a bit, but disappointing is hardly the word for it, especially
since they threw out OE that actually did well for me for years.

I find having a client that "Looks the same" on all the systems I use
handy, and Thunderbird is enough like OE and the first incarnation of
WLMD that I wouldn't have changed unless forced, but now that I have
been forced I most likely will never bother to look at the Vista client
again.

 

[Jon]

In Win Mail, marking all newsgroup headers as read is inordinately slower
than in OE.

Two examples.

this newsgroup, today had about 550 messages when I checked it. In OE,
took about 2-3 seconds to Mark All Read. Win Mail took about 16 seconds.
(both the XP and Vista machines had about the same number of previously
marked read headers hidden)

Opened up the ....vista.mail newsgroup for first time, grabbed 33K+ new
headers. To mark all in OE - 16 seconds, in Win Mail - 50 seconds.

Oh well, maybe SP1 will fix this as well?

Val
(not holding my breath)

You could try periodically deleting older downloaded messages / headers.
That tends to speed things up.

 

[Crusher]

you might have a slow computer...I just marked 1109 messages in about 2
seconds

 

[Alias]

In Win Mail, marking all newsgroup headers as read is inordinately slower
than in OE.

Two examples.

this newsgroup, today had about 550 messages when I checked it. In OE, took
about 2-3 seconds to Mark All Read. Win Mail took about 16 seconds. (both
the XP and Vista machines had about the same number of previously marked
read headers hidden)

Opened up the ....vista.mail newsgroup for first time, grabbed 33K+ new
headers. To mark all in OE - 16 seconds, in Win Mail - 50 seconds.

Oh well, maybe SP1 will fix this as well?

Val
(not holding my breath)

While you're waiting for MS to get its act together and even decide on a
name for the new email program in Vista, try out Thunderbird. It's free
and has some nice features that Windows Mail and OE don't have:

http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird

Alias

 

[Non-entity]

Val;
Be careful of what you expect in a Service Pack.
Certainly the Updates will be incorporated.
Also possibly some drivers if the hardware manufacturers have taken the
appropriate steps for inclusion.
Not much else can be expected in any Service Pack.

For Windows Mail issues, look for fixes in the next version of the mail
program rather than the Vista Service Pack.

Poor Microsoft, having volunteers man the newsgroups to tell us that SP1
probably isn't going to do what it should do (fix things that should never
have made it to release, like marking all messages read taking inordinate
amounts of time), or the file copy/move bug that can make that function
bring things to a standstill. There seems to be a common mentality with
Microsoft today that boggles the mind; contact them? No thanks. Many
dollars for a call to "customer support" (note the quotes). Steven Botts
has posted a message that rings true to this one about the beta/next version
of OneCare - that is, don't expect the many user requests to be implemented
(heaven forbid). Rather, expect the next version to add functionality (that
I never read of anyone asking for) and the user requests in the NEXT
version, maybe.

Please do your volunteer duty (I'm tired of all this) and let Microsoft know
the public has higher expectations from a company that charges a great deal
for their software, that Vista a big downer (mostly a big waste of money)
and they might rethink their strategy of accomplishing nothing in service
packs to fix the original software that is crippled.

Next version of Windows Mail my ***. FIX IT NOW. Did people shell out
their money only to go back to XP? I'm planning to do just that; and I
wasted lots of money on a full version of Home Premium - I was one of those
that lined up in cold weather outside Egghead when they used to have brick
and mortar to buy things like DOS 6.0. I bought the release version of
Vista at CompUSA (before they closed the store, see any pattern here?) and
they had their Vista displays up - and no customers buying it. I guess MS
wants to ditch the "home" market for the more lucrative business "model."
They are doing a great job of it.

Bill Halvorsen

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

"Please do your volunteer duty (I'm tired of all this) and let
Microsoft know..."
If you want Microsoft to know, it is your "duty".
Please do not attempt to tell me what to do, that is not your
business.

What have you been told in the mail newsgroup when you took your mail
issues there?

"wasted lots of money on a full version of Home Premium... I bought
the release version of Vista at CompUSA"
If that is what you think, hopefully you returned it within the 45 day
return period.
I certainly would return something if I felt I had "wasted lots of
money".

 

[cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)]

Val wrote:

Not sure if it will. The mail data storage model is different in
Vista's mail, compared to OE, and there may well be relative
(in)efficiencies that apply to both, especially if Vista's mail store
is relocated to a FATxx volume.

Specifically:
- Outlook stores all messages, mailboxes, etc. in one .PST
- OE stores all messages in mailbox as one file per mailbox
- Vista mail stores each message as a separate file

The last approach requires the B-tree indexed directory efficiency of
NTFS to scale up to typically large numbers of messages. If the file
system is FATxx, which uses linear lists of directory entries, the
speed will tend towards the intolerable as you get more mail.

All this is AFAIK, and further, I don't know whether Vista Mail uses
the same storage strategy for newsgroups and posts.

While you're waiting for MS to get its act together and even decide on a
name for the new email program in Vista, try out Thunderbird. It's free
and has some nice features that Windows Mail and OE don't have:

http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird

I'm with Alias on this one, though my own choice of email app would be
Eudora (now open source, available cross-platform AFAIK).

Mail stores are large, and too important for me to trust an
application that is chained to a particular version of a particular
OS, as is the case with OE on XP and Vista Mail. That objection
applies even more to Outlook, as chained to MS Office.

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First, the good Customer feedback has
been clear and unambiguous.

 

[Alias]

Not sure if it will. The mail data storage model is different in
Vista's mail, compared to OE, and there may well be relative
(in)efficiencies that apply to both, especially if Vista's mail store
is relocated to a FATxx volume.

Specifically:
- Outlook stores all messages, mailboxes, etc. in one .PST
- OE stores all messages in mailbox as one file per mailbox
- Vista mail stores each message as a separate file

The last approach requires the B-tree indexed directory efficiency of
NTFS to scale up to typically large numbers of messages. If the file
system is FATxx, which uses linear lists of directory entries, the
speed will tend towards the intolerable as you get more mail.

All this is AFAIK, and further, I don't know whether Vista Mail uses
the same storage strategy for newsgroups and posts.



I'm with Alias on this one, though my own choice of email app would be
Eudora (now open source, available cross-platform AFAIK).

Seems you can only download the lite version and a sponsored version of
Eudora. The paid version is no longer available. I guess I will have to
wait until it really goes Open Source.

 

[Charlie Tame]

Not sure if it will. The mail data storage model is different in
Vista's mail, compared to OE, and there may well be relative
(in)efficiencies that apply to both, especially if Vista's mail store
is relocated to a FATxx volume.

Specifically:
- Outlook stores all messages, mailboxes, etc. in one .PST
- OE stores all messages in mailbox as one file per mailbox
- Vista mail stores each message as a separate file

The last approach requires the B-tree indexed directory efficiency of
NTFS to scale up to typically large numbers of messages. If the file
system is FATxx, which uses linear lists of directory entries, the
speed will tend towards the intolerable as you get more mail.

All this is AFAIK, and further, I don't know whether Vista Mail uses
the same storage strategy for newsgroups and posts.



I'm with Alias on this one, though my own choice of email app would be
Eudora (now open source, available cross-platform AFAIK).

Mail stores are large, and too important for me to trust an
application that is chained to a particular version of a particular
OS, as is the case with OE on XP and Vista Mail. That objection
applies even more to Outlook, as chained to MS Office.



First, the good Customer feedback has
been clear and unambiguous.

Just to add to the info you gave I would both the original Windows Mail
and the original Live Mail Desktop were appallingly slow switching from
group to group and marking messages. I have no idea where FAT might come
into this calculation but did wonder if it have anything to do with the
"Ratings" on posts... does it by chance have to communicate with the
server during it's marking efforts?

Those two were pretty bad, Thunderbird much faster in Vista and was
slightly faster than OE in Win XP and Thunderbird under Linux beats all.
What doesn't make sense is that the OS should do this, I tend towards
the feeling that it's poor indexing in the mail clients.

 

[cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)]

cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user) wrote:

Seems you can only download the lite version and a sponsored version of
Eudora. The paid version is no longer available. I guess I will have to
wait until it really goes Open Source.

The same download operates in Lite, Sponsored and Paid modes.

After Eudora was converted to Open Source, the Paid model was phased
out. The adverts stopped, so in almost all respects, Sponsored Mode
is the same as Paid Mode. You have the little square ad pane, but
it's just grey, with no ads downloaded or displayed in it.

I expect the first Open Source revision of Eudora will drop that ad
window from the UI. However, it's unclear as to whether anyone has
taken up the challenge of developing Eudora further... you can publish
source code with open source access, but you can't make them code

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