Another nail in the coffin for Vista
Posted on Saturday 26th January 2008
A major flaw has been identified in the way Vista handles file transfers especially across networks. The internet, and tech forums in particular, have been buzzing with a chorus of disgruntled users. It would seem that in trying to be too clever, Microsoft have played with SMB packet sizes and it hasn’t worked.
In a typical attempt to save face Microsoft are trying to dodge the issue despite pleas for help on their forum. They have promised that copy, move and delete speeds will be quicker with the release of Service Pack 1, but the release date for this is still not confirmed. The reason for the cloak-and-dagger behaviour is due to Microsoft’s fears that corporate customers are waiting for SP1 to upgrade from XP. By not revealing the date they hope businesses will grow impatient and upgrade anyway. In the meantime a fix can be obtained but rather than providing the download to all customers, Microsoft only send it to those who specifically lodge a complaint. Even with the fix Vista still limps along like a wounded soldier, refusing to give up yet still a hindrance.
This is not good publicity for what is supposed to be their flagship product. Recently news emerged that Vista is selling well, however on closer inspection it would seem most of the licences sold are to OEMs for shipment with new PCs. So Microsoft shouldn’t be too smug while some big retailers, like Dell, still offer XP as an option on new computers.
As you will remember I have had multiple problems with Vista - here, here and here. This is yet another frustrating headache and grounds for further encouragement to stick with XP.
Cannot comment ric as iv not had much to do with vista still ido like xp
This with Vista’s increased kernel size, resulting in sucking any performance improvement your PC may have, it bears resemblence to a Ryanair approach, when it comes to software development.
Ubuntu, anyone?
And we haven’t even got on to Vista’s probs with memory handling and power utilisation.
I would gladly switch over to using a flavour of Linux (prob Fedora due to RedHat’s input and the relative wealth of drivers). When we lived in Leicester we had a server and laptop running beautifully on SuSE. Unfortunately the main machine upstairs is too bespoke to take Linux (no drivers for the RAID controller and still no native 3D graphics support) and my Thinkpad had already rejected it, so we’ll have to stick with BG’s offerings for the time being.
I’d love to have another Linux server as they are so versatile and stable, but have been vetoed (by Reggie) in favour of a small-form NAS RAID array.