Vista Service Pack 1 RC1 Review

return to Projects

Purpose:

Microsoft recently released their release candidate 1 build of the much anticipated update to the Vista operating system. This service pack ecompasses many compatibility and performance enhancements as well as enhancements for new technologies. This review looks at the performance of Vista before and after the Service Pack install. A list of the 'notable' changes can be found here.

Procedure:

Operating System:

Windows Server 2008 RC1

Virtualized Hardware using Hyper-V

Guest OS (Hyper-V): Windows Vista Ultimate x64

Service Pack Installation:

The service pack installation was straightforward. It too almost 3 hrs 15 min ( 4 reboots with 3 stage install setup each post setup completion) for the service pack to install. Not sure if it took longer due to this being a Server 2008 VM or if it was due to Visual Studio 2008 that was installed. There are some reports saying that the service pack causes issues for Visual Studio 2008 installation due to the .Net Framework 3.5 that is installed with VS.net 2008. I didn't find any people having issues on install of SP1 when VS 2008 was already installed.

Performance

Network copy of a 2.4 GB file to Desktop from Windows Home Server
Pre SP1
9 minutes 55 seconds. It took almost 2 minutes for the OS to calculate the copy time.

Post SP1
~24 minutes. It took around less than 5 seconds for the OS to calculate the copy time.

Copy same file to another location on same PC for 2.4 GB file
Post SP1: 2' 15" (calc <1 sec)

Other Observations

Initial impressions were that the OS was slightly more responsive.

Application open/close: Noticeably faster

Shutdown: Appears slightly longer
Restart: About the same to a bit longer (It took 30 sec from welcome screen to desktop after login).

Windows Experience Rating not appearing in the information window for system. Appeared pre-SP1.

Total RAM is displayed as 3070 MB. Actual; RAM = 3072 MB

Conclusion:

There are some noticeable improvements and some behaviors that are inconsistent. I am not sure why network file copy took twice as long with SP1 than before. File copy to the same drive appeared faster. More testing will need to be done to see if SP1 does indeed deliver the improvements in performance that Microsoft intended. I am also curious is they've added QAM tuner support for unencrypted HDTV so that people with HDTV QAM tuner cards can use it with Vista Ultimate Edition.

Please e-mail info@terracode.com with any comments or questions.

Terracode copyright 2007