Home Server Projects
The best servers are those that don't appear to be servers at all.
Monday 19 October 2009, 5:35 AM
Windows Operating Systems = Bloatware
There has been a lot going on. I've been trying out CTP 2011 “Quebec” from Microsoft, its basically Windows 7 Embedded. Now I know how various OEMs have been able to demo Windows 7 on all the netbooks that suddenly popped up. Consider the Windows 7 Embedded CTP to be like a "live-DVD" type of installation tool and you'll have the basic idea. If you take out pieces of Win7 that you don't need or want, you can lighten the OS load considerably. The smallest image with some networking I was able to make was about 500 MB. More on that later.
Win 7 Embedded is an oxymoron like jumbo shrimp. The OS is so freaking fat that it really doesn't make much if any sense to use it as an “embedded” operating system. As a touch screen enabled bistro table “information appliance” yeah, I'll buy that idea. Something to put inside a handheld or portable device? No and no way. Putting it in netbooks with Intel Atoms, or Via C7's maybe, they'd be slow. Windows XP though would be a better choice, and Win XP Embedded even better.
I suspect that a large amount of the fat in Win 7 comes from supporting old, really OLD applications. As an example I found edlin.exe in the system32 directory. That in itself was funny since the original edlin was a 16 bit LINE editor in MSDOS. It pre-dates edit.exe, another MSDOS editor, also in the system32 directory. Adding notepad.exe and write.exe makes 4 text editors in one folder. Is that really necessary?.
(Before you jump me, yes I know edlin.exe is still in XP Pro etc. When was the last time you HAD to use edlin? Did you really want to?)
There are runtime packages for C, C+, C++, VB5 and VB6, old MFC etc some of them pre-date Win95. ODBC database connectors for Access 95/97 databases, dBase3, and Paradox. Support for OS2, its limited but there.
Iexpress.exe, an application-installer-packager from the Windows 3.1 era also has an system32 “update”.
Most of the Win7 fat though is semi-hidden in plain-sight. Portions of the operating system have to be written in such a way to support either the old applications directly or through the application compatibility add-ons Microsoft has patched onto the various versions of Windows. Ntvdm and wow (Windows on Windows) are examples of application patching, hosting or shims embedded into Windows. I appreciate the fact that Microsoft wants to support everything they have ever released (except maybe MS Bob!) but come on, can't that stuff be supported in a download and only on the users' systems that need it?
Since Microsoft has stopped supporting MSDOS, Win 3.1 & 3.11, and WIn9X directly, why continue to support them in the new operating systems?
Hook Application Compatibility into Windows Update and use that to download the appropriate packages to support the old stuff the user has to continue using. There already is a side-by-side mechanism setup for the DLL hell of previous Windows NT versions. Something similar can be done for the old stuff, especially the 16 bit stuff.
How about MS making their Virtual PC software into something that does the legacy support? Its an extension of the idea of Virtual XP Pro stuff going to be done in WIn7.
Think of all the plug-ins that users have to download when they go web-surfing all over the Internet. Its not like the users don't already download most of the junk on their computers already.
Most of the people I have had to fix their home computers don't make back-ups and lose their installation disks so when they go out and buy the latest version of Windows Whatever, they end up buying new software anyway. This new software seldom needs MSDOS and 16bit Windows support. So why leave it in the OS as part of the piles of detritus that hardly ever gets executed?
If you want another argument to remove this un-needed dross, think of system security. All of this old compatibility software sitting on the system has a very large and exposed surface to malware writers. At present most of the compatibility software hasn't been used much to attack the host 32 bit system but its an attack vector waiting to happen. If the software wasn't there reliably on every Windows system that would be one less way to hack into or around system security. In other words, the 16 bit legacy software is not on the system UNLESS the user downloads a compatibility package, until then it wouldn't present itself as such a tempting target for future malware. If the malware guys can't count on it being there for use then its not a viable means of attack.
Win 7 Embedded is an oxymoron like jumbo shrimp. The OS is so freaking fat that it really doesn't make much if any sense to use it as an “embedded” operating system. As a touch screen enabled bistro table “information appliance” yeah, I'll buy that idea. Something to put inside a handheld or portable device? No and no way. Putting it in netbooks with Intel Atoms, or Via C7's maybe, they'd be slow. Windows XP though would be a better choice, and Win XP Embedded even better.
I suspect that a large amount of the fat in Win 7 comes from supporting old, really OLD applications. As an example I found edlin.exe in the system32 directory. That in itself was funny since the original edlin was a 16 bit LINE editor in MSDOS. It pre-dates edit.exe, another MSDOS editor, also in the system32 directory. Adding notepad.exe and write.exe makes 4 text editors in one folder. Is that really necessary?.
(Before you jump me, yes I know edlin.exe is still in XP Pro etc. When was the last time you HAD to use edlin? Did you really want to?)
There are runtime packages for C, C+, C++, VB5 and VB6, old MFC etc some of them pre-date Win95. ODBC database connectors for Access 95/97 databases, dBase3, and Paradox. Support for OS2, its limited but there.
Iexpress.exe, an application-installer-packager from the Windows 3.1 era also has an system32 “update”.
Most of the Win7 fat though is semi-hidden in plain-sight. Portions of the operating system have to be written in such a way to support either the old applications directly or through the application compatibility add-ons Microsoft has patched onto the various versions of Windows. Ntvdm and wow (Windows on Windows) are examples of application patching, hosting or shims embedded into Windows. I appreciate the fact that Microsoft wants to support everything they have ever released (except maybe MS Bob!) but come on, can't that stuff be supported in a download and only on the users' systems that need it?
Since Microsoft has stopped supporting MSDOS, Win 3.1 & 3.11, and WIn9X directly, why continue to support them in the new operating systems?
Hook Application Compatibility into Windows Update and use that to download the appropriate packages to support the old stuff the user has to continue using. There already is a side-by-side mechanism setup for the DLL hell of previous Windows NT versions. Something similar can be done for the old stuff, especially the 16 bit stuff.
How about MS making their Virtual PC software into something that does the legacy support? Its an extension of the idea of Virtual XP Pro stuff going to be done in WIn7.
Think of all the plug-ins that users have to download when they go web-surfing all over the Internet. Its not like the users don't already download most of the junk on their computers already.
Most of the people I have had to fix their home computers don't make back-ups and lose their installation disks so when they go out and buy the latest version of Windows Whatever, they end up buying new software anyway. This new software seldom needs MSDOS and 16bit Windows support. So why leave it in the OS as part of the piles of detritus that hardly ever gets executed?
If you want another argument to remove this un-needed dross, think of system security. All of this old compatibility software sitting on the system has a very large and exposed surface to malware writers. At present most of the compatibility software hasn't been used much to attack the host 32 bit system but its an attack vector waiting to happen. If the software wasn't there reliably on every Windows system that would be one less way to hack into or around system security. In other words, the 16 bit legacy software is not on the system UNLESS the user downloads a compatibility package, until then it wouldn't present itself as such a tempting target for future malware. If the malware guys can't count on it being there for use then its not a viable means of attack.
Saturday 3 October 2009, 5:22 PM
Real World OS Compatability Problems
Had an interesting day today. Call it either an example of planned obsolescence or an instance of deliberate system design but I ran into one of the biggest issues of proprietary operating system software.
For a customer's installation, we needed to buy a new rack mount server to replace a failed system. At first I was told that our newest software based on Java would be running on it. No problem. Just get Windows Server 2008 R2 since the server was coming from DELL. DELL recommends Windows (even when the customer doesn't want it). Actually Windows XP Pro SP3 would have sufficed. The new server would be replacing a previous 1U server that had been running Windows XP for nearly 6 years when it finally cratered. That's a phenomenal length of time for oilfield computer equipment.
I was mis-informed. The customer reports that they are using really old legacy stuff based on VB 5 & 6. Oh yuck. And that generates a problem. Turns out old VB5 & 6 software running old unsigned Active X components will not run on Server 2008 (“Visaster” server without the eye-candy). Not in WoW. Not in ntvdm. Not at all. I had message boxes popping out all over the place. I had to try to make it work. I was amazed that Server 2008 would actually let me install the software in the first place since the installer program was from the same era.
This is one of those situations where using a virtual machine could solve a problem caused by an incompatible operating system. I was tempted but I didn't bite the apple. This particular server system will be located on a drilling rig off-shore who-knows-where. The techs on the rig are fairly astute and have handled complex computer issues before. But asking them to learn a new technology just because the current OS cannot run what the old OS could is too much.
The system got “downgraded” to Server 2003 (XP Pro-like) and everything not only installed but ran without complaint. Since the system will be running behind at least 3 layers of managed routers and is on a private VPN supported intra-net it should be fine, I hope.
That kind of trade-off happens in the real-world. Microsoft knows that happens. You can't force your customers to upgrade their systems if they like what they have running. What would be wrong offering for sale old Windows operating systems with absolutely no warranty? If you read the current EULA you're not getting anything anyway from Microsoft even on the latest iterations or builds of Windows. As far as tech support goes, we don't even bother to call MS since it takes practically a “verbal hurricane” to elevate their attention.
What is wrong with selling old versions of their OS is that the old operating systems have so many ways to be compromised that botnets would be even worse than they are now. So in this instance I have to agree with Microsoft. Don't sell or install the old stuff but sometimes you don't have a choice.
I feel uneasy delivering something I know is broken and has been cracked by malware malcontents hundreds of times. When you “own” the operating system instead of just “leasing” it, you can better control the effects obsolescence, planned or otherwise, has on your corporate bottom line. I would have much more preferred to have installed a Linux based server for that very reason.
(endorsement) As to DELL tech support, I was pleasantly surprised. It took wading through about 6 or 7 phone voice menus but I did get some help. It turns out the Raid driver required was on a third disk. Quick and easy fix. (/endorsement)
For a customer's installation, we needed to buy a new rack mount server to replace a failed system. At first I was told that our newest software based on Java would be running on it. No problem. Just get Windows Server 2008 R2 since the server was coming from DELL. DELL recommends Windows (even when the customer doesn't want it). Actually Windows XP Pro SP3 would have sufficed. The new server would be replacing a previous 1U server that had been running Windows XP for nearly 6 years when it finally cratered. That's a phenomenal length of time for oilfield computer equipment.
I was mis-informed. The customer reports that they are using really old legacy stuff based on VB 5 & 6. Oh yuck. And that generates a problem. Turns out old VB5 & 6 software running old unsigned Active X components will not run on Server 2008 (“Visaster” server without the eye-candy). Not in WoW. Not in ntvdm. Not at all. I had message boxes popping out all over the place. I had to try to make it work. I was amazed that Server 2008 would actually let me install the software in the first place since the installer program was from the same era.
This is one of those situations where using a virtual machine could solve a problem caused by an incompatible operating system. I was tempted but I didn't bite the apple. This particular server system will be located on a drilling rig off-shore who-knows-where. The techs on the rig are fairly astute and have handled complex computer issues before. But asking them to learn a new technology just because the current OS cannot run what the old OS could is too much.
The system got “downgraded” to Server 2003 (XP Pro-like) and everything not only installed but ran without complaint. Since the system will be running behind at least 3 layers of managed routers and is on a private VPN supported intra-net it should be fine, I hope.
That kind of trade-off happens in the real-world. Microsoft knows that happens. You can't force your customers to upgrade their systems if they like what they have running. What would be wrong offering for sale old Windows operating systems with absolutely no warranty? If you read the current EULA you're not getting anything anyway from Microsoft even on the latest iterations or builds of Windows. As far as tech support goes, we don't even bother to call MS since it takes practically a “verbal hurricane” to elevate their attention.
What is wrong with selling old versions of their OS is that the old operating systems have so many ways to be compromised that botnets would be even worse than they are now. So in this instance I have to agree with Microsoft. Don't sell or install the old stuff but sometimes you don't have a choice.
I feel uneasy delivering something I know is broken and has been cracked by malware malcontents hundreds of times. When you “own” the operating system instead of just “leasing” it, you can better control the effects obsolescence, planned or otherwise, has on your corporate bottom line. I would have much more preferred to have installed a Linux based server for that very reason.
(endorsement) As to DELL tech support, I was pleasantly surprised. It took wading through about 6 or 7 phone voice menus but I did get some help. It turns out the Raid driver required was on a third disk. Quick and easy fix. (/endorsement)
Wednesday 23 September 2009, 1:48 PM
From the Source's Mouth
A complaint I've made once or twice, Linux is getting bloated has now been confirmed from the source:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10358024-16.html
Linus Torvald's says so too. (At least as reported by CNet. I tried to find the original quote. Probably only available through Conference proceedings.)
One of the biggest advantages of Linux is that you don't get trapped into one distro or version as with Windows. If you want a smaller footprint OS, you can find a Linux version that's a LOT smaller than Windows.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10358024-16.html
Linus Torvald's says so too. (At least as reported by CNet. I tried to find the original quote. Probably only available through Conference proceedings.)
One of the biggest advantages of Linux is that you don't get trapped into one distro or version as with Windows. If you want a smaller footprint OS, you can find a Linux version that's a LOT smaller than Windows.
Saturday 19 September 2009, 4:22 PM
VMPs - Virtual Machine Practices
Most of the following relates to using XP Pro as host. As soon as you feel comfortable using Ubuntu or some other Linux as host do it since you will see a performance increase in the VM.
On VirtualBox, its like all other VMs from other manufacturers, if you can afford to throw more RAM at it, go ahead and do it since VMs are like JAVA, real RAM hogs. RAM is incredibly cheap right now.
The other area they like to gobble, is hard drive space. Usually 8 to 10 GBs at a time. A large hard drive is an advantage here. Intuitively putting the VM "virtual hard drives" on a drive other than the boot/system drive for the XP host should help performance.
Unfortunately by default VirtualBox will place the VM hard drive files in the Document and Settings User profile folder. Ugh. Be sure to put them some place else to prevent massive profile folder bloat.
When it comes to operating systems, especially Linux distros, trying as many as you like, yes you can. Create a new VM for each distro. Just remember that a running VM will grab RAM space. The more RAM you can give it totally uncontested, the faster the VM will run. So to speed up VMs, limit the number running at a time and give them as much room as is practical. That means if you aren't using it, suspend it or shutdown that specific VM.
Beware that the hard drive you have all of this running on is in good shape. What can't run or isn't running in RAM, is being swapped out to the hard drive. So drive swapping tends to increase rather remarkably. A high speed drive helps but its still way freaking slower than more RAM.
Each of the VMs will have a setting for the amount of RAM to allow the VM to use. That comes out of the total amount of RAM of the host. The host requires RAM space since its actually fairly busy responding to the services demands from the VM so don't totally choke off the host. Setting RAM below 512 MB on XP Pro SP3 system without shutting down a lot of the unneeded XP services is likely to generate a big performance hit to the VM.
When you get comfortable with Ubuntu (or another Linux distro) I find that running VirtualBox on Ubuntu as host, things runs faster than with VirtualBox running on a XP Pro host. Mostly because there isn't so much crap running like in XP Pro. But also because the OS can use the RAM above 3.7 GBytes like XP Pro can't in a 4 GB motherboard. This is an OS limitation based on a hardware issue. Might be different in differing OS or hardware. All my testing has been on Intel chipsets. Not a problem on 64 bit systems. The biggest argument I see for a 64 bit board is a VM.
Also another trick is to shut down as many services as you can in the XP host so that you can to give the VM more room. However do NOT shutdown networking, firewall, SMB, RPC, DNS, DHCP, workstation, secondary logon, error reporting, event viewer, or printer services. If you just stop the services instead of disabling them, when the system is rebooted they come back. There are others as well.
One special service ABSOLUTELY that needs to be turned off temporarily is Windows Update, especially if you have set it to auto-install. You don't want it trying to update while the VM is up and running! Especially since it seems practically ALL XP updates require a reboot.
You can shutdown dotNet related services, indexing service, help & support services, DCOM, Terminal Server like remote desktop and assistance, and anything related to dialup server (its not likely to want to stop) and you're not likely to need Hyperterminal!
In the case of Dialup Server and Telephone related services, if you aren't using a dialup connection, you can disable them but it requires a reboot to make it "stick". Just set them on disabled and then reboot. Its almost impossible to get the telephone services to shutdown from the MMC or Services applet. When the XP system comes up the services won't be running.
In the process window in Task Manager, you can also stop any of the software update processes, like Google, java (juschedule), realplayer etc. If you have a variation of SQL server or its agents or writers running in the XP host, shut them down. If the OS comes back and tells you that the process is vital, believe it and try shutting something else down. Anything with svchost attached to the process name is likely networking related so just leave it running.
If something stops working that you need to have running, just reboot the XP Pro host. As long as you haven't gone into the Services applet and DISABLED the service, it all comes back on the next reboot.
Please note that all of this "advice" is related to Windows XP Pro. I haven't much experience with Windows XP Home. In the areas of running VMs on XP Home, I've had no experience. I've considered XP Home the "runt of the litter" and haven't paid it much heed. My kids run it on their systems but that's about it.
BTW all of this advice works for everyday XP Pro operation or game playing even without a VM running!
On VirtualBox, its like all other VMs from other manufacturers, if you can afford to throw more RAM at it, go ahead and do it since VMs are like JAVA, real RAM hogs. RAM is incredibly cheap right now.
The other area they like to gobble, is hard drive space. Usually 8 to 10 GBs at a time. A large hard drive is an advantage here. Intuitively putting the VM "virtual hard drives" on a drive other than the boot/system drive for the XP host should help performance.
Unfortunately by default VirtualBox will place the VM hard drive files in the Document and Settings User profile folder. Ugh. Be sure to put them some place else to prevent massive profile folder bloat.
When it comes to operating systems, especially Linux distros, trying as many as you like, yes you can. Create a new VM for each distro. Just remember that a running VM will grab RAM space. The more RAM you can give it totally uncontested, the faster the VM will run. So to speed up VMs, limit the number running at a time and give them as much room as is practical. That means if you aren't using it, suspend it or shutdown that specific VM.
Beware that the hard drive you have all of this running on is in good shape. What can't run or isn't running in RAM, is being swapped out to the hard drive. So drive swapping tends to increase rather remarkably. A high speed drive helps but its still way freaking slower than more RAM.
Each of the VMs will have a setting for the amount of RAM to allow the VM to use. That comes out of the total amount of RAM of the host. The host requires RAM space since its actually fairly busy responding to the services demands from the VM so don't totally choke off the host. Setting RAM below 512 MB on XP Pro SP3 system without shutting down a lot of the unneeded XP services is likely to generate a big performance hit to the VM.
When you get comfortable with Ubuntu (or another Linux distro) I find that running VirtualBox on Ubuntu as host, things runs faster than with VirtualBox running on a XP Pro host. Mostly because there isn't so much crap running like in XP Pro. But also because the OS can use the RAM above 3.7 GBytes like XP Pro can't in a 4 GB motherboard. This is an OS limitation based on a hardware issue. Might be different in differing OS or hardware. All my testing has been on Intel chipsets. Not a problem on 64 bit systems. The biggest argument I see for a 64 bit board is a VM.
Also another trick is to shut down as many services as you can in the XP host so that you can to give the VM more room. However do NOT shutdown networking, firewall, SMB, RPC, DNS, DHCP, workstation, secondary logon, error reporting, event viewer, or printer services. If you just stop the services instead of disabling them, when the system is rebooted they come back. There are others as well.
One special service ABSOLUTELY that needs to be turned off temporarily is Windows Update, especially if you have set it to auto-install. You don't want it trying to update while the VM is up and running! Especially since it seems practically ALL XP updates require a reboot.
You can shutdown dotNet related services, indexing service, help & support services, DCOM, Terminal Server like remote desktop and assistance, and anything related to dialup server (its not likely to want to stop) and you're not likely to need Hyperterminal!
In the case of Dialup Server and Telephone related services, if you aren't using a dialup connection, you can disable them but it requires a reboot to make it "stick". Just set them on disabled and then reboot. Its almost impossible to get the telephone services to shutdown from the MMC or Services applet. When the XP system comes up the services won't be running.
In the process window in Task Manager, you can also stop any of the software update processes, like Google, java (juschedule), realplayer etc. If you have a variation of SQL server or its agents or writers running in the XP host, shut them down. If the OS comes back and tells you that the process is vital, believe it and try shutting something else down. Anything with svchost attached to the process name is likely networking related so just leave it running.
If something stops working that you need to have running, just reboot the XP Pro host. As long as you haven't gone into the Services applet and DISABLED the service, it all comes back on the next reboot.
Please note that all of this "advice" is related to Windows XP Pro. I haven't much experience with Windows XP Home. In the areas of running VMs on XP Home, I've had no experience. I've considered XP Home the "runt of the litter" and haven't paid it much heed. My kids run it on their systems but that's about it.
BTW all of this advice works for everyday XP Pro operation or game playing even without a VM running!
Tuesday 15 September 2009, 6:29 AM
Windows 7 Needs Liposuction
I've tested Win7 in Beta and what turned out to be the RTM. On a dual core with 4 GB of RAM its a fine OS. Faster and much more reliable than Visaster. It did a number of things I was impressed with but there is no compelling reason to run it. That's at work or at home.
I try to install as little software as possible on a computer's OS to keep the running speed to a maximum. In Windows there are limited things that can be done like killing the taskbar tray, shutting off unneeded processes, etc. Even killing the Explorer shell can give you a little speed boost of about 1% and about 15 to 20 Megabytes of more RAM space in XP Pro. Most applications using Win32 API calls will still draw windows and do the Windows Form library functions without having to run a full Explorer desktop.
I find that Ubuntu 9.04 runs the exact same applications as XP I need at work and at home for 85% of my work. Word Processor/office suite, a web browser and email client application. For those situations where I HAVE to run Windows, I'll run XP Pro in a VM hosted on Ubuntu. Its about as fast as Win7 without a VM on the same hardware.
The complaint I have with Windows OS that Linux addresses to a certain extent, is that I can strip out or NOT install big chunks of software that is more rightly defined as application layer software instead of the bloat the has driven Windows into the ground performance-wise.
Considering the speed increases in the hardware, the operating systems ought to be running 5 to 10 times faster than they do. Mr Kingsley-Hughes timings on the install/upgrades confirms to me that the Win7 operating system is too damn fat. (check out his column over at ZDNET.COM yesterday)
Years ago I did tests comparing an application suite software our company wrote running on Windows 2000 Workstation/Pro SP4 and XP Pro SP1 on the the exact same hardware, same RAM, hard drive etc. Win XP Pro ran the software 20% faster than Win2K.
A similar test I've done running our current application on Windows XP Pro and Win7 Beta on the exact same hardware revealed that XP Pro was faster by 5%! What happened?
I went through looking at what processes were running on the 2 systems. I tried to optimize the running processes in Win 7 to approximate what was running in XP Pro. I did speed up Win7 a bit but not enough to be statistically significant. Win7 was still slower than XP Pro. Both tests were done again on the exact same machine with 4GB of RAM, both Windows OS versions were 32 bit and the video and network drivers were Microsoft's device drivers. XP Pro was running SP3 and Win7 was running the Beta.
If you open the Services windows in both XP Pro and Win7 and compare, there are approximately 3 times as many services running in Win7. A lot of them do arcane tasks that have little service for data display or word processor-like applications. The trick is to figure out what can be shut-off.
Its obvious that I will have to repeat the test again once Win7 comes out. I was very surprised by the results. I expected Win7 to blow past XP Pro.
I try to install as little software as possible on a computer's OS to keep the running speed to a maximum. In Windows there are limited things that can be done like killing the taskbar tray, shutting off unneeded processes, etc. Even killing the Explorer shell can give you a little speed boost of about 1% and about 15 to 20 Megabytes of more RAM space in XP Pro. Most applications using Win32 API calls will still draw windows and do the Windows Form library functions without having to run a full Explorer desktop.
I find that Ubuntu 9.04 runs the exact same applications as XP I need at work and at home for 85% of my work. Word Processor/office suite, a web browser and email client application. For those situations where I HAVE to run Windows, I'll run XP Pro in a VM hosted on Ubuntu. Its about as fast as Win7 without a VM on the same hardware.
The complaint I have with Windows OS that Linux addresses to a certain extent, is that I can strip out or NOT install big chunks of software that is more rightly defined as application layer software instead of the bloat the has driven Windows into the ground performance-wise.
Considering the speed increases in the hardware, the operating systems ought to be running 5 to 10 times faster than they do. Mr Kingsley-Hughes timings on the install/upgrades confirms to me that the Win7 operating system is too damn fat. (check out his column over at ZDNET.COM yesterday)
Years ago I did tests comparing an application suite software our company wrote running on Windows 2000 Workstation/Pro SP4 and XP Pro SP1 on the the exact same hardware, same RAM, hard drive etc. Win XP Pro ran the software 20% faster than Win2K.
A similar test I've done running our current application on Windows XP Pro and Win7 Beta on the exact same hardware revealed that XP Pro was faster by 5%! What happened?
I went through looking at what processes were running on the 2 systems. I tried to optimize the running processes in Win 7 to approximate what was running in XP Pro. I did speed up Win7 a bit but not enough to be statistically significant. Win7 was still slower than XP Pro. Both tests were done again on the exact same machine with 4GB of RAM, both Windows OS versions were 32 bit and the video and network drivers were Microsoft's device drivers. XP Pro was running SP3 and Win7 was running the Beta.
If you open the Services windows in both XP Pro and Win7 and compare, there are approximately 3 times as many services running in Win7. A lot of them do arcane tasks that have little service for data display or word processor-like applications. The trick is to figure out what can be shut-off.
Its obvious that I will have to repeat the test again once Win7 comes out. I was very surprised by the results. I expected Win7 to blow past XP Pro.
Previous
