T
Travis King
5536 is quite a bit better than Beta 2... especially performance. It's
almost as fast as XP. It still has some work to be done, however.
First of all, my performance rating (Windows Experience Index) went up
overall. My lowest rated item was my processor at 3.3, while in Beta 2, my
lowest rated item was my RAM at 3.0. My RAM in 5536 is now at 4.0. In
fact, except for my CPU, everything ranks in the 4 or 5-range on my Windows
Experience Index.
Beta 2 performance rating:
OVERALL: 3
CPU: 3.1
RAM: 3.0
HD: 3.7
VIDEO RAM: 4.3
GPU: 5.9
5536 Windows Experience Index:
OVERALL: 3.3
CPU: 3.3
RAM: 4.0
HD: 5.0
VIDEO RAM: 4.0
GPU: 4.5
My computer's specs:
AMD Sempron 64 2800+ @ 1.6GHz
1.5GB PC-2700 RAM
Western Digital 120GB 7200RPM 8MB cache IDE (ATA100) hard drive (Vista is
installed on a 60GB partition.)
Ati Radeon X1600 PRO AGP 8x with 256MB GDDR2 RAM
mpfmp.exe that I've complained about in the past utilizes half the CPU power
it did on Beta 2... I'd still like to see it lower, but it's better.
Windows Media Player is much lighter on the CPU usage, however, DWM still
gobbles up my CPU when WMP11 is running from time to time, although it now
quits doing that after a while. DWM starts off eating 20% of my CPU when I
open WMP, then after a little while, it drops down to less than 5%. Even
though these improvements have come, the visualizations still are much
slower than they are in XP and only marginally faster than beta 2 with
WMP11. Aero Glass still gets sluggish when WMP11 is playing music from time
to time.
Beta 2 startup time: 1 minute, 42 seconds
5336 startup time: 1 minute, 8 seconds
XP startup time: 1 minute, 5 seconds
Opening a 4GB playlist in beta 2: 1.5 seconds
Opening a 4GB playlist in 5536: 0.8 seconds
Opening a 4GB playlist in XP: 1.5 seconds
The Windows folder on my computer is actually larger now than it was in beta
2. In beta 2, it had around 36,000 files, but it now has around 38,000
files. It's also almost a half a gig larger.
Shut-down time on beta 2: 28 seconds
Shut-down time on 5536: 19 seconds
Shut-down time on XP: 10 seconds
Now I have not defragmented my hard drive yet since installing 5536, so
perhaps these figures may improve.
Some bugs/issues that I reported to MS that have been fixed:
Taskbar transparency now stays in-sync with the wallpaper if you change it.
Thumbnails load now
I can now change my visualizations to one that requires the video card and
go back to one that requires the processor without the visualization
freezing.
Some bugs/issues I haven't taken the time yet to see if they have been fixed
or not:
Animated GIFs do not play in Photo Gallery Viewer (or whatever it's called)
Cursor scheme not staying put after setting a custom cursor scheme
Getting access denied messages when trying to change or add files to my
'Public' folder via another computer on the network even though I am
allowing my files to be changed
PowerPoint Screen Resolution problem
PowerPoint Layer Problem with Aero Glass enabled
Some bugs/issues I'm still running into:
Even though I don't see the annoying 'default programs' icon on folder icons
anymore, some folders now show a '?' or a music icon even after changing
them.
WMP11 visualizations are still very slow and Aero Glass gets slow when
playing music in WMP11.
New bugs/issues:
Explorer crashed once when trying to change an icon for a folder.
Computer restarts itself when resuming from 'sleep'.
Software compatibility on this build:
Actually for me, I've had more software compatibility issues on this build
than I did with Beta 2. HP Photosmart Photo Printing, Adobe PhotoShop 5.5,
Sierra PrintArtist 8.0, and Quake III Arena all worked fine on Beta 2, but
now on this build, they will not install at all - in fact, they won't do
anything. When I go to click install for instance, the computer does
nothing but idle. I will see setup.exe in the processes section in task
manager, but I don't see anything on my screen. Compatibility mode did not
work. I did manage to get all of those four programs to work fine on Vista
except PrintArtist 8, but I had to install them with XP and had then
installed onto the Vista partition, which will just not work in the real
world. I also have heard that Avast does not work on this build, although I
haven't tried it.
My scanner put up more of a fuss on 5536 than it did on Beta 2 to get it
installed, but I managed to get it installed. I've got a Visioneer 5800 USB
scanner by the way.
Here are my few complaints and see if others have experienced this:
My CPU usage and RAM usage has actually been higher at idle than it was with
Beta 2 at idle.
Vista is acting just like XP when sometimes when you go into Computer, it
will lose the grouped icons setting.
I'm still getting way too many UAC warnings. Every time I install a program
UAC comes up. Every time I delete a file, UAC still comes up. Every time I
move a file, UAC still comes up. Most of the items in the control panel
still give you the UAC warnings as well. I feel that UAC has only slightly
improved and still drives me nuts.
And then you have Windows Defender blocking some startup programs including
msconfig now and get an annoying balloon message about it. Argh! My
feeling on it is there is too much modding that you still have to do to
Vista to get it running right, especially for beginners.
almost as fast as XP. It still has some work to be done, however.
First of all, my performance rating (Windows Experience Index) went up
overall. My lowest rated item was my processor at 3.3, while in Beta 2, my
lowest rated item was my RAM at 3.0. My RAM in 5536 is now at 4.0. In
fact, except for my CPU, everything ranks in the 4 or 5-range on my Windows
Experience Index.
Beta 2 performance rating:
OVERALL: 3
CPU: 3.1
RAM: 3.0
HD: 3.7
VIDEO RAM: 4.3
GPU: 5.9
5536 Windows Experience Index:
OVERALL: 3.3
CPU: 3.3
RAM: 4.0
HD: 5.0
VIDEO RAM: 4.0
GPU: 4.5
My computer's specs:
AMD Sempron 64 2800+ @ 1.6GHz
1.5GB PC-2700 RAM
Western Digital 120GB 7200RPM 8MB cache IDE (ATA100) hard drive (Vista is
installed on a 60GB partition.)
Ati Radeon X1600 PRO AGP 8x with 256MB GDDR2 RAM
mpfmp.exe that I've complained about in the past utilizes half the CPU power
it did on Beta 2... I'd still like to see it lower, but it's better.
Windows Media Player is much lighter on the CPU usage, however, DWM still
gobbles up my CPU when WMP11 is running from time to time, although it now
quits doing that after a while. DWM starts off eating 20% of my CPU when I
open WMP, then after a little while, it drops down to less than 5%. Even
though these improvements have come, the visualizations still are much
slower than they are in XP and only marginally faster than beta 2 with
WMP11. Aero Glass still gets sluggish when WMP11 is playing music from time
to time.
Beta 2 startup time: 1 minute, 42 seconds
5336 startup time: 1 minute, 8 seconds
XP startup time: 1 minute, 5 seconds
Opening a 4GB playlist in beta 2: 1.5 seconds
Opening a 4GB playlist in 5536: 0.8 seconds
Opening a 4GB playlist in XP: 1.5 seconds
The Windows folder on my computer is actually larger now than it was in beta
2. In beta 2, it had around 36,000 files, but it now has around 38,000
files. It's also almost a half a gig larger.
Shut-down time on beta 2: 28 seconds
Shut-down time on 5536: 19 seconds
Shut-down time on XP: 10 seconds
Now I have not defragmented my hard drive yet since installing 5536, so
perhaps these figures may improve.
Some bugs/issues that I reported to MS that have been fixed:
Taskbar transparency now stays in-sync with the wallpaper if you change it.
Thumbnails load now
I can now change my visualizations to one that requires the video card and
go back to one that requires the processor without the visualization
freezing.
Some bugs/issues I haven't taken the time yet to see if they have been fixed
or not:
Animated GIFs do not play in Photo Gallery Viewer (or whatever it's called)
Cursor scheme not staying put after setting a custom cursor scheme
Getting access denied messages when trying to change or add files to my
'Public' folder via another computer on the network even though I am
allowing my files to be changed
PowerPoint Screen Resolution problem
PowerPoint Layer Problem with Aero Glass enabled
Some bugs/issues I'm still running into:
Even though I don't see the annoying 'default programs' icon on folder icons
anymore, some folders now show a '?' or a music icon even after changing
them.
WMP11 visualizations are still very slow and Aero Glass gets slow when
playing music in WMP11.
New bugs/issues:
Explorer crashed once when trying to change an icon for a folder.
Computer restarts itself when resuming from 'sleep'.
Software compatibility on this build:
Actually for me, I've had more software compatibility issues on this build
than I did with Beta 2. HP Photosmart Photo Printing, Adobe PhotoShop 5.5,
Sierra PrintArtist 8.0, and Quake III Arena all worked fine on Beta 2, but
now on this build, they will not install at all - in fact, they won't do
anything. When I go to click install for instance, the computer does
nothing but idle. I will see setup.exe in the processes section in task
manager, but I don't see anything on my screen. Compatibility mode did not
work. I did manage to get all of those four programs to work fine on Vista
except PrintArtist 8, but I had to install them with XP and had then
installed onto the Vista partition, which will just not work in the real
world. I also have heard that Avast does not work on this build, although I
haven't tried it.
My scanner put up more of a fuss on 5536 than it did on Beta 2 to get it
installed, but I managed to get it installed. I've got a Visioneer 5800 USB
scanner by the way.
Here are my few complaints and see if others have experienced this:
My CPU usage and RAM usage has actually been higher at idle than it was with
Beta 2 at idle.
Vista is acting just like XP when sometimes when you go into Computer, it
will lose the grouped icons setting.
I'm still getting way too many UAC warnings. Every time I install a program
UAC comes up. Every time I delete a file, UAC still comes up. Every time I
move a file, UAC still comes up. Most of the items in the control panel
still give you the UAC warnings as well. I feel that UAC has only slightly
improved and still drives me nuts.
And then you have Windows Defender blocking some startup programs including
msconfig now and get an annoying balloon message about it. Argh! My
feeling on it is there is too much modding that you still have to do to
Vista to get it running right, especially for beginners.
