Unchecking Transparency

[MICHAEL]

I've had a slightly aggravating problem with WinMail, lately.
When I went to reply to a post, there was a delay/hesitation
of a few seconds and the composition window would be all
white for a bit. This also happened when composing a new
mail message. Also, if I left-clicked-hold to select a portion of
text to cut out of the reply, the window froze a few seconds.
This only happened in Windows Mail, not in Outlook or any
other program. It just started doing it one day. I haven't installed
any new apps or changed any settings.

I did all the maintenance tasks on WinMail, nothing worked.
Then, I was messing around with the personalization settings,
I unchecked "Enable Transparency". Mysteriously, the WinMail
problem stopped. I turned it back on, and the problem reappeared.
I had not experienced this all through beta testing.
Also, with transparency off, I swear things seem a bit more zippy.
Very odd.

I don't know, just thought it interesting to pass along.

I have an ATI 9700 card.
2GB RAM
P4(HT) 3.4 GHz


-Michael

 

[Chad Harris]

Michael--

In RTM but not any other build, I've experienced a Win Mail Not Responsive
"whiting of the interface" when I try to send a message and then hit
Tools>Get x number headers (this can be set at Options)to download new
messages. I just leave it alone and although it takes about 20 seconds, it
usually resolves. If not, I restart Win Mail so it's a minor annoyance. You
might try running SFC from an elevated cmd prompt.

If there is a connection between unchecking transparency, or Aero Glass and
this, I don't know what it is.

CH

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

I get a lot of "not responding" episodes and have to wait Win Mail out until
it comes back. I have seen it in another program or two. The greater the
number of messages in a newsgroup, the more frequently it happens. It looks
like an apphang but appears normal (albeit annoying).

 

[Robert Firth]

After I tried to archive all the messages in the tech beta newsgroups, Win
Mail got so slow I had to delete all the accounts and messages and recreate
them.

Every time I started Win Mail, it would stop responding. It was only trying
to process 100,000+ messages!

--
/* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* Robert Firth *
* Windows Vista x86 RTM *
* http://www.WinVistaInfo.org *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * */

 

[MICHAEL]

I get those, too. But this was different, and the behavior stopped
once I unchecked transparency. On two other machines, it don't
have the problem. Compose and reply windows pop up instantly,
and selecting multiple lines of text to cut doesn't cause a temporary
freeze. This only recently started happening on this laptop.

Oh well, for whatever reason, that WinMail problem is no more.
And I don't even notice transparency not being on- don't miss it.


-Michael

 

[Chad Harris]

This thread has made me think that all of us are getting some hangup with
WinMail when we reach a certain critical mass of messages that are
downloaded. I ran into this:

http://blogs.msdn.com/winperf/archive/2006/12/14/the-results-are-in.aspx

"Windows Vista Aero had little effect on the responsiveness of Windows
Vista. Over 95 percent of the response-time differences between tests we ran
with and without Vista Aero were under a tenth of a second, and all of the
differences were under one second."

CH

 

[MICHAEL]

Interesting article, Chad.

However, I didn't turn off Aero, just the transparency.
I can still do the flip windows thingy.


-Michael

 

[I.P. Nichols]

Interesting article, Chad.

However, I didn't turn off Aero, just the transparency.
I can still do the flip windows thingy.

Michael,

I have always experienced slown performance with Mail, things like
ctrl-shift-a to mark all messages read would take many seconds and when I
decide to delete all messages from the prior month to shorten the number of
stored messages it took a minute or two and almost everything was way slower
than in OE6.

After reading your message I unchecked transparency and like magic I got
snappy performance same as in OE6.

And yeah, I was already aware of the testing results report that Chad
mentions. Likely this problem is confined to only Mail and l'll bet they
never tested Mail's performance.

Thanks for the tip, it cures a real frustation I've had with Vista. I had
tried resorting to Classic Windows but that appears to turn off the Windows
Display Manager feature. And as you say, I don't really miss transparency.

 

[=?iso-8859-1?Q?Said_=22Szajd=22_D=E1niel?=]

Hi,

I don't have this problem, but anyway, I'd suggest to check out if there's
been any drivers automatically downloaded from Windows Update for your video
card, or that you downloaded the beta driver from ATi.

In device manager, try to roll back your driver if it's possible.

While, as I mentioned, I don't have this problem, the ATi website drivers,
and the WU drivers (dated 19/12/2006) are causing some minor problems (like
IE7 flickering on live.com, etc.), so, for now, I'm better off with the
included out of the box ATi drivers.

Maybe, all I've said isn't applicable for your case.

--Szajd

 

[MICHAEL]

Michael,

I have always experienced slown performance with Mail, things like ctrl-shift-a to mark all
messages read would take many seconds and when I decide to delete all messages from the prior
month to shorten the number of stored messages it took a minute or two and almost everything
was way slower than in OE6.

After reading your message I unchecked transparency and like magic I got snappy performance
same as in OE6.

And yeah, I was already aware of the testing results report that Chad mentions. Likely this
problem is confined to only Mail and l'll bet they never tested Mail's performance.

Thanks for the tip, it cures a real frustation I've had with Vista. I had tried resorting to
Classic Windows but that appears to turn off the Windows Display Manager feature. And as you
say, I don't really miss transparency.

I'm not sure what is really going on with WinMail, I think most of the
problems are with the new database that WinMail uses. However,
for me, with the reply/compose windows being slow to open- turning
off transparency did something. I have no idea what one has to do
with the other (if anything beyond my imagination), I can only report
what I have seen and experienced. Turning off transparency didn't
heal WinMail of all that inflicts it.

I have to say, I am sort of disappointed with WinMail and can not believe
it was released in its current condition. This is the program that so many
will use every single day. Most folks will use it for email. Thankfully, I use
Outlook for email. But for your regular users, WinMail and Internet Explorer
will be the two programs they see all the time. A lot of users will pass
judgment on Vista based on the poor performance of WinMail. The ever
so annoying "Not Responding" is going to confuse/frustrate a lot of folks.
Think about it, in WinXP most regular users' experience centered around
OE and IE. They are going to start using WinMail and wonder WTF was
improved. I know all about the "under the hood" stuff, but the actual experience
with WinMail will leave many quite unsatisfied. Of course, I think a lot has to
do with almost intentional neglect- Microsoft would rather see folks move to
Windows Live Mail Desktop or Windows Live Mail. Both equal advertising
revenue.

I also tried using Windows Classic instead of Windows Aero, I actually find
performance better with Aero on, but with transparency turned off. It doesn't
make much sense, I almost always use maximized windows. Which is why I
don't notice transparency being off. Anyway, I'm glad my tip seems to have
helped you. I wouldn't count on it being a miracle cure. We both may have
something else in common that may be interacting poorly with transparent
windows, and/or perhaps, WinMail has some special bug with transparency.
I just don't know.


Take care,

Michael

 

[MICHAEL]

Hey, Szajd.

Yes, I got an update for ATI and rolling back the driver was one
of the first things I tried- no joy.

Except for the WinMail oddity, the graphics look great and behave
well. DVD's look fantastic, the games are fine and dandy.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Take care,

Michael

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

I'm finding that the only thing slower than WinMail is constipation.

 

[Spooky]

You find performance better with Aero on because Aero is designed to offload
graphics tasks to the vid card GPU and relieve the pressure on the machine
CPU. So you find performance better with Aero because your CPU is not
spending that much time on graphics.

 

[Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE/WM]

I'm finding that the only thing slower than WinMail is constipation.

Have you tried Windows Live Mail Desktop?

 

[Michael Jennings]

Vista feels similar to Windows 3.0 - won't 3.1 fix the fudges shortly?

The spirit of OE lives on - not using Outlook means adjustments.
I hope that if Tom Koch gives up, someone picks up the msimn torch.
At least they didn't continue the spelling checker not included challenge.

 

[MICHAEL]

LOL! So true.


-Michael

I'm finding that the only thing slower than WinMail is constipation.

 

[I.P. Nichols]

I'm finding that the only thing slower than WinMail is constipation.

Metamucil does wonders for constipation so on your tip I poured a couple of
spoon full thru the floppy drive slot and so far it hasn't helped WinMail
speed but the splash screen looks much better...

 

[Chad Harris]

I've had a slightly aggravating problem with WinMail, lately.
When I went to reply to a post, there was a delay/hesitation
of a few seconds and the composition window would be all white for a bit.
This also happened when composing a new
mail message. Also, if I left-clicked-hold to select a portion of
text to cut out of the reply, the window froze a few seconds.
This only happened in Windows Mail, not in Outlook or any
other program. It just started doing it one day. I haven't installed
any new apps or changed any settings.

I did all the maintenance tasks on WinMail, nothing worked.
Then, I was messing around with the personalization settings,
I unchecked "Enable Transparency". Mysteriously, the WinMail
problem stopped. I turned it back on, and the problem reappeared.
I had not experienced this all through beta testing.
Also, with transparency off, I swear things seem a bit more zippy.
Very odd.

I don't know, just thought it interesting to pass along.

I have an ATI 9700 card.
2GB RAM
P4(HT) 3.4 GHz

-Michael

 

[Chad Harris]

I've had a slightly aggravating problem with WinMail, lately.
When I went to reply to a post, there was a delay/hesitation
of a few seconds and the composition window would be all white for a bit.
This also happened when composing a new
mail message. Also, if I left-clicked-hold to select a portion of
text to cut out of the reply, the window froze a few seconds.
This only happened in Windows Mail, not in Outlook or any
other program. It just started doing it one day. I haven't installed
any new apps or changed any settings.

I did all the maintenance tasks on WinMail, nothing worked.
Then, I was messing around with the personalization settings,
I unchecked "Enable Transparency". Mysteriously, the WinMail
problem stopped. I turned it back on, and the problem reappeared.
I had not experienced this all through beta testing.
Also, with transparency off, I swear things seem a bit more zippy.
Very odd.

I don't know, just thought it interesting to pass along.

I have an ATI 9700 card.
2GB RAM
P4(HT) 3.4 GHz

-Michael

 

[Chad Harris]

I am more convinced now after this thread, and using OE on XP for a
considerable amount of time that this relationship between "enable
transparency" and Win Mail exists. Granted the amount of messages that you
have configured either to download probably has some part in this equation,
but nothing like this happens on XP with OE and I have the same amount of
downloads (all of them) on both XP with OE and Vista with Win Mail. I think
you're definitely onto something.

CH