Wednesday 30 April 2008, 8:53 AM
Windows XP SP3 Installed
I have downloaded and installed Service Pack 3 for Windows XP Professional on my Fujitsu Lifebook S6510. Everything went smoothly, and it seems to work just fine. I don't see anything particularly better after the installation, but more importantly I don't see anything worse either.
Overall I am very happy with the S6510 running XP since my latest retreat from Vista last week. As I have said so many times before, it works, it is stable, it is fast, and everything else that I own works with it.
What kind of strange world is this, when the company which controls the market can stop sales of an operating system that works, in order to force purchases of an operating system that has been proven, over and over again, to still have so many bugs and performance problems that it is clearly inferior to the one being withdrawn? I sincerely hope that OEMs such as Fujitsu, Dell, HP and the like, who will have to take the brunt of the customer support calls and dissatisfaction, continue to pressure Microsoft to allow them to continue selling XP. I mean, honestly, if Intel alone could pressure Microsoft into doing something that was clearly technically "wrong" (changing the minimum requirements for Visa), one would hope that a group of OEMs could convince them to do something that is obviously technically "right".
Of course, that's not the way this world, and this market, generally works. Unfortunately.
UPDATE:
According to an article by Mary Jo Foley on the ZDNet.com site, Microsoft has suddenly decided not to release XP SP3 to Windows Update and the Download Center. For those who still want to download it via the direct link to the executable, as I did, please read the excellent article by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes on the same site, explaining the considerations of such a direct download, and the link to the executable patch file.
The problem seems to be a compatibility issue with a rather obscure Microsoft Business product. Moreover, they have not only held back XP SP3, they have also stopped Vista SP1 from Automatic Download (again) for the same reason. This seems very mysterious to me - I am sure that Microsoft isn't doing this out of the goodness of its heart, nor out of concern for their general customers. There must be more to it than meets the eye - perhaps it is a security issue, or they are afraid that it could provide the basis for another huge lawsuit or some such. It will be interesting to see what happens.
Thursday 24 April 2008, 8:19 PM
Vista vs. XP: The Final Retreat
I suppose that most people are getting tired of reading about Vista vs. XP. I know that I am getting tired of writing about. I'm getting even more tired of fighting with it. So this will be the last time I do either of those, for the foreseeable future. I give up. I surrender. I retreat, for the final time. My Fujitsu Lifebook S6510 is running Windows XP Professional again, and I have no intention of spending any more time or effort on Vista until Vista SP2 comes out, at which point I might consider it again.
What precipitated the retreat, this time, was that I turned my laptop on this morning, after having done a normal "suspend" last night, and after several minutes of black screen and endless disk activity, Vista said "Improper shutdown detected, recovering...", and then proceeded to count from 1% to 100%, very slowly. Then it made a fresh boot, did a lot more thrashing around on the disk, asked me if I wanted to boot normal, safe mode or whatever, and then finally came up again. The whole process took a good 15 minutes.
That scares the daylights out of me - especially after having Vista give me the "unable to boot / unable to recover" business previously. Second, we are at a critical point in my work right now, and it is crucial that when I turn the laptop on, it is ready to use quickly - that is the reason I use suspend/resume in the first place. So I can't afford to have it unexpectedly take 15 minutes or more, or even worse have not start at all. So, I spent the morning putting back in the disk with XP Pro, which I had swapped out at the beginning of this month when I got Vista SP1 to install. Fortunately, that didn't take too long, almost everything I needed was already loaded, all I had to do was update the drivers, copy over mail and such. By early afternoon everything was running normally again.
In addition to this "major" problem which was the straw that broke the camel's back, there were a few other "minor" problems that had been getting more irritating as time went by. In order of severity and irritation, they were:
- Wireless-N connection to the Linksys WRT350N router. The problem I have written about previously, where Vista makes the Wireless-N connection the first time without trouble, but on some subsequent attempt it will no longer connect, was back with a vengeance. I did manage to figure out that if I reboot the router, it restarts the cycle - the laptop will connect again right away, and probably will connect the next two or three times, but it will always fail again. I had absolutely no luck getting this fixed, or even figuring out where the problem is. Linksys Customer Support said that it looks like it is probably a Vista problem, and neither Intel (the WiFi adapter) nor Microsoft have any reports of similar problems that I can find. Being able to use the laptop wireless anywhere in the house is important, so this was getting to be a major issue.
- Memory leak. I just wrote about this last week. When I boot Vista, the memory meter shows 38% memory in use (of a total of 3 GB). If I use the laptop without rebooting for a day or two, the memory use slowly creeps up to the 60-70% range. Then it starts to act strangely, and I have to reboot. I've tried shutting down all applications, even including the AVG Internet Security, and the memory use does not go below 60%, so I assume it is Vista itself, or a system program or utility that is leaking memory.
- Fingerprint reader. Sometimes when I suspend/resume, it doesn't seem to recognize the fingerprint reader. The OmniPass software comes up with a "master login" window, asking for name and password, rather than the fingerprint scan window. I suspect that this was performance related somehow, that Vista was waking up and looking around for devices, and didn't recognize and configure the fingerprint reader before the OmniPass software wanted it. It only happened about 20% of the time, but that was enough.
- Screen Saver: Some time ago, the screen saver stopped coming on. I checked the settings, they were all correct, but it just never kicked in, as if Vista thought something was active all the time.
It's too bad. I've said many times before, I like using Vista, and I really want it to be as good as, or better than, XP. But this laptop is a tool for me, and the first priority is for it to work. So no more Vista for quite a while The good news is, that also means no more writing about Vista for quite a while.
jw 24/4/2008
Thursday 17 April 2008, 1:39 PM
Vista Memory Leak?
I'm wondering if anyone else has seen anything that looks like a memory leak in Vista? I've been running Vista Business on my Lifebook S6510 for several weeks now, and overall I'm pleased - at least pleased enough to keep it this time, rather than retreating to XP Pro again. But I've started to notice a correlation between some odd behavior of the laptop and steadily increasing memory use, so before spending a lot of time trying to track this down, I'm hoping someone else has seen the same thing.
I keep the standard Vista CPU Meter gadget running in the Vista Sidebar all the time. When I boot Vista, once everything settles down it shows memory use of about 40% (I have 3 GB installed). As I do my normal work over a period of a day or two, and generally across several sleep/resume cycles, the memory use slowly climbs until it gets to around 70%. I have then stopped all of the user programs that I have running, and even stopped the Internet Security program that I use, and the memory use only goes down by 3% or so. I have checked the memory use for remaining processes in the Windows Task Manager, and while a couple of things are using noticeably more memory than they were at boot (dwm.exe and explorer.exe, for example), nothing is using anything near the amount it would take to account for the increase shown by the CPU Meter.
So, before I break out the more serious tools, does anyone know about Vista itself, or any of the standard system processes, having a memory leak?
jw 17/4/2008
Thursday 17 April 2008, 11:22 AM
Vista gets the rock'n'roll treatment
It's great to see Microsoft Vista entering the highly regarded field of corporate musical nonsense - this Springsteen-influenced number is a classic.
My erstwhile colleage IT Anthems would love this one. Bruce ServicePack and the Vista Street Band is a genuine spoof from Microsoft. Also, it's actually funny enough to fool the gadget-freaks at Gizmodo who updated their horrified posting to say "The video is an internal spoof, an insider confirms". Well duh.
Enjoy the in-jokes in this one, like the CEO on the sax (Philppe Kahn anyone?), and tell me - are any of these people real MS sales staff with actual names?
Monday 31 March 2008, 10:17 AM
Vista SP1 - One Week Update
It has been a week since I installed Vista with Service Pack 1 (SP1) on this Fujitsu Lifebook S6510 laptop computer. I have said before that I like Vista, and I want it to be at least as good as XP on my laptop. I'm now pleased to say that I think it is so, and I am going to keep running it on my laptop. I think the fact that I have had Vista loaded twice before on this laptop, and both times decided that it wasn't stable enough or fast enough for me to use it rather than XP Professional, is evidence that I am not willing to just blindly accept Vista.
First, since installing Vista SP1 I have had no boot problems or failures, which I had at least twice with the original Vista installation. Not only that, but Vista seems to boot a bit faster than it did before SP1, and it certainly suspends and resumes faster than it did before.
Second, the general performance and "feel" of the laptop is quite a bit better than it was before SP1. There are no more of the long pauses that I saw previously, and I don't see the disk activity led on the laptop suddenly start flashing like crazy for no apparent reason.
Third, I haven't had any problems with applications or utilities, as I previously had. I haven't seen the dreaded "This program is not responding" window yet, which is very good news.
On the network side, there is good news and bad news. The good news is that Vista does not have the problem which I described recently with XP, where a static IP address on the wired ethernet interface interferes with routing on the wireless interface after a suspend/resume sequence. The bad news is that there is still some sort of intermittent problem with the wireless connection between the Lifebook and the Linksys WRT350N router. I wrote recently that I suspected this problem was caused by the Sierra Wireless AirCard, or the Swisscom software that came with it, but I have confirmed now that is not the case. The symptom is relatively simple; starting from a fresh boot of both the laptop and the router, the wirelss will always connect properly. If I then suspend/resume, reboot, or even just turn the laptop wireless off and back on, after some random number of disconnect/reconnect cycles, it will suddenly no longer be able to connect properly. The key word is "properly", Vista says that it has a "limited connection" to the network, but in fact nothing works. Once this happens, the only solution is to reboot the router - nothing I can do to the laptop or Vista will get a good connection again, but rebooting the router will always restore a good connection.
I contacted Linksys about this last Friday, and got a particularly unhelpful response of "sounds like a Vista problem to me". Sigh. So for the time being I am stuck with power-cycling the router from time to time. Ah well, where would we be if everything worked?
jw 31/3/2008
Monday 24 March 2008, 11:37 AM
Vista SP1 - Now Installed and Running
Ok, in large part due to some good advice from David Long, I now have Vista SP1 installed on my Fujitsu Lifebook S6510, and after two days it is still running with no problems. I have learned several things along the way:
- Based on what Ed Bott said in his ZDNet blog, I expected Windows Update to show SP1 as an optional update, although not offer it to me automatically quite yet. That turned out not to be the case, so based on what David Long said, both in his own blog and in a comment to my previous blog entry, I downloaded the full SP1 update and installed it that way. I believe that it would have also worked by just starting the Update Installation as David describes in his blog, but by the time I read that, I had already downloaded the full SP1 file, so that's the way I went ahead and installed it.
- Installation went very smoothly, and only took about an hour. Of course that was installing from the file that I had already downloaded, and it would have taken a bit longer if it had been downloading what it needed as it went.
- I believe that I have determined that the problem I had previously mentioned with Wireless-N connection to my Linksys WRT350N router is in fact neither a Vista nor a Linksys problem, it looks like it is caused by the Swisscom Unlimited Data Manager software that comes with the Sierra Wireless AirCard. I had no problem with wireless connection for the first two days after installing SP1, then I installed the UDM software, and suddenly got the wireless connection problem again. After removing the "Sesam" handover protocol from the wireless connection, and rebooting the router, it now seems to be working correctly again.
- I finally got the latest Intel 965 graphic drivers to install under Vista. I had been trying to use either the Intel "setup" program, or the Vista driver update search, and neither would work - they both complained that the driver wasn't certified for this configuration. When I went into manual driver update, and pointed it specifically at the INF file for the latest release, it installed.
- I figured out how to get the Lexmark driver for my E240 laser printer installed. I had to let Vista install the default Microsoft driver first, then select "run as Administrator" for Printers / E240 / Properties, and it would then let me select "New Driver", and point it at the Lexmark Universal PCL driver.
- I have updated various other drivers with much newer versions than are available on the Fujitsu support web page, including Realtek sound, AuthenTec fingerprint scanner, Intel 4965 AGN wireless, Intel TurboMemory, Marvell Yukon Gigabit Ethernet and Synaptics touchpad. I have no way of knowing if any or all of these drivers are contributing to Vista running better/faster/reliably, but I think it is a shame that so many of the drivers available from Fujitsu are so much older than what is currently available from the suppliers.
With all of this done, Vista is running noticeably better than it did before SP1. It boots faster, suspends and resumes much faster, and so far there have been no boot failures or crashes as I had before. The overall feel is better, but I can't put any specifics to what or why that is. One thing I did notice is that Vista still seems to have trouble figuring out how long it is going to take to copy large files. I copied all of my photographs from the XP disk to a Freecom USB drive, which took a bit less than 15 minutes. When I connected the Freecom disk to the Vista system and started copying them back, Vista said that it was going to take over 3 hours. It then jumped all over the place with its estimate of "time remaining", but in the end it actually took about 15 minutes - the same as on XP.
So, as things stand now, I am running Vista on this laptop again. I'm once again hopeful that it will be at least as good as XP has been - and my brothers are laughing at my eternal optimism. Obviously, I still have the XP disk ready to swap back in if something stupid happens.
jw 24/3/2008
Thursday 20 March 2008, 9:56 PM
I will blog, despite Vista's best efforts
I was going to blog this evening but Vista, as I shall relate below, had other ideas. Still, I found it an illuminating example that captures much of what is wrong with Microsoft as an operating system vendor.
I had several thoughts that I imagined might be interesting to share: about how, despite all the advances that have generated all the product upgrades from the 'Wintel' duopoly, I have this week discovered that an eight-year old Toshiba laptop with a slow PIII processor and humble Windows XP boots approximately five times faster than my almost brand new Asus Core 2 Duo with Vista Ultimate. Why? Well, despite the Asus having a nice fast SATA hard drive, the Tosh is booting from a Samsung SSD.
Who'd have thought that a simple hard drive could make such a difference.
I thought about blogging about how valuable Windows XP discs are set to become as there is an increasingly widespread opinion that XP is the only Microsoft operating system worth owning because, quite apart from application compatibility issues, it is the only decent Microsoft operating system without the truly obnoxious product key checks and associated penalties that come with Vista. (Indeed, my own observations are that XP discs are regarded as gold dust, and I've never seen people so anxiousy to hang on to copies of an old Microsoft operating system).
I also thought I might blog a little more in-depth about Google Docs, and particularly the formiddable brew that is fermenting in the Google spreadsheet department as that company continues to quietly expand the functions and, as I blogged very briefly about earlier, adds to the gadgets that can be built using spreadsheets.
But Vista had other ideas, and has left me with a salutory tale to tell.
As I fired up Vista on my Asus to a) time accurately how long it takes to boot, and b) take another look at Google Docs and those eye-candied gadgets, Vista informed me that the product key I entered is not valid, indeed the whole operating system is not valid, and that unless I enter a correct product key it will only run with reduced functionality. That essentially means that all I get is a browser, through which of course I can buy a valid product key.
Like hell I will. The copy of Vista that I'm running came with the laptop, so I followed the instructions on screen with the intention of speaking to someone and explaining the situation, hoping to catch a sympathetic ear. Failing that, well, I suppose I could also pull rank and plead with an understanding Microsoft PR. Unfortunately, this being Thursday evening before Easter Friday, everybody is stuck in a traffic jam somewhere as they head off for the weekend. Phone lines are open 8 to 6 on weekdays (and, I imagine, not public holidays).
I'm sure others have found themselves in a similar position. Like them, I suspect, my main problem is not so much being asked to pay to continue to use something that as far as I am concerned I already own. No, my real problem right now is that because of some admin error far off in the ether, my laptop has been locked down.
And yet here I am, happily blogging away, on my Asus running Vista with reduced functionality. I could easily reboot into Ubuntu, and in fact was abot to so so, but something occurred to me.
It occurred to me that even when Vista brings down the shutters and bars me from virtually all my applications but one (Firefox), I can still do some pretty cool stuff. I can type this blog entry in a fully-featured word processor with spell checking and so on. I could if I wish create a pretty slick presentation. Or I could go and create a fairly complicated spreadsheet of the type that generated the widget in my previous post. In fact I could go and create more of those widgets, publish the data for others to edit and collaborate on. Yup, I'm in Google Docs. I appreciate this is pretty obvious, basic stuff, but it illustrates an important point.
The point is that Microsoft's business model relies on making life difficult for me, as a user, and ensuring it extracts every penny that it *thinks* it is due from me. Google on the other hand is firmly in the opposite camp when it comes to my perception as a user: they really are very good at making things exceptionally easy. Granted, Adwords have been known to cause headaches for advertisers, Google news has caused news operations some sleepless nights, and Google Search has turned out to be heroin for many publishers, but thinking purely as a user, I'm bowled over by how easy it is to collaborate on, create and publish some pretty sophisticated content -- despite Microsoft's best efforts.
Microsoft may buy Yahoo. It may bring out another OS upgrade. It may even produce an online version of Office - oh wait, it has, let's go and try that.
"BROWSER OR OPERATING SYSTEM NOT COMPATIBLE
Your Browser or Operating System is not compatible with the Test Drive System. The Test Drive System supports the following:
* Windows 98, 2000 and XP
* Internet Explorer 5.5 and later"
Oops. Well that didn't work very well did it? As I was saying, Microsoft can try all these things, but this is not about acquisitions or about poducts, or even about licences. It's about a company's fundamental philosophy and attitude to its customers. Until Microsoft truly gets that, I'll be sticking Ubuntu - or XP as a backup if I really need to run Windows. Hmm, now where's that old Tosh...
Thursday 20 March 2008, 12:50 PM
Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) confusion
I'm seeing a lot of posts on various forums and blogs with people complaining that SP1 although released has not shown up on their windows update.
Many are pointing to driver compatibility issues preventing perhaps being the cause.
According to an article I read on the Microsoft site (sorry not got source) SP1 although final and ready to install must be initiated by clicking a link on the SP1 page. You have to be viewing the page with Internet Explorer 7.
Click here
The auto-update via windows update will start in April so the early adopters can beat the rush and get it now while the update server is relatively idle. Compared to the 2-3hr ordeal of the beta install the final SP1 took less than 30mins (once I had removed the beta edition).
I haven't tested extensively yet but I get the impression a some of the tweaks in the beta may have been left out of the final release to avoid compatibility issues so I am expecting a dip in performance compared to the beta edition I used. All I can confirm for now is that although I have 2 sets of drivers that supposedly have known issues - my sigmatel sound card and my finger print reader - SP1 works fine and I've had no sound or finger print reader issues since installing.
While it is always worth backing up and researching before installing any significant software or update I am fairly confident that the vast majority of users with mainstream hardware will have no problems. Self built systems with components form obscure manufacturers may fair not so well but they are like having issues with Vista in the first place.
See my previous blog posts and review for more info on what to expect from SP1
Wednesday 19 March 2008, 8:38 PM
Vista SP1 - No Go for Me at the Moment
I have been waiting anxiously for the public release of Vista SP1. I had reloaded the Vista disk for my Lifebook S6510 a week or so ago, so that I would have a fresh load ready for update. Today it became available... and although I checked Microsoft Update today, it didn't show up as an optional update. So I was surprised when I read that it had been released. It didn't take much research to find out why...
I have read several times that SP1 was being held up because "certain uncommon drivers" caused problems with it. I had assumed, because they were said to be "uncommon", that I probably wouldn't have a problem because of that. I was wrong. I definitely have one of them, the AuthenTec fingerprint reader, with exactly the driver release that causes a problem. Apparently Windows Update is smart enough to find that out, and that is why it didn't offer me SP1.
I may also have two other problems, but it's not entirely clear to me yet. The list says Intel Graphic drivers between 7.14.10.1322 and 7.10.14.1403; my laptop has 7.14.10.1244, even older than the "problem" drivers, so what does that mean? Is it not compatible at all, or is it so old that it doesn't have whatever the problem with SP1 is? Also, the list says "Realtek AC'97 Audio", but the S6510 has "Realtek HD Audio", I suspect that is not the same, so perhaps it isn't a problem - but I still need to verify this.
The bottom line is, at least in my case, the "uncommon" drivers seem to be a lot more common than I expected. I've just had a chat with Fujitsu support, and they seemed to be totally in the dark about this. On one hand I find that odd, because SP1 hasn't taken anyone by surprise, and the list of offending drivers has been available for some time now. On the other hand, considering how unprepared many (most) OEMs were when Vista was originally released, this would appear to be nothing more than a continuation of that situation - but I had hoped after all the noise made about it, that it would have been better handled this time.
Friday 7 March 2008, 3:06 PM
Vista - Is It Some Sort of Drug?
The strangest thing has happened. I have known since the Vista disk in my Lifebook S6510 got corrupted and wouldn't boot that I would have to reload it before SP1 comes out. Last night I decided that I probably had enough time to do that, so I swapped the XP drive out and the Vista drive in, and booted up the Fujitsu Vista Recovery DVD. That all went very smoothly, and within an hour or so I was up and running with Vista in exactly the state it had been when the Lifebook was delivered. That's pretty impressive.
Then I started loading all of my basic software - Firefox, Thunderbird, ooVoo, SightSpeed, Gizmo and so on. The more I worked with it, just getting that stuff loaded, the more I realized that I really LIKE the way this thing runs with Vista. I can't put my finger on it; it's not only the "Aero" user interface, and it's certainly not any faster than it runs with XP Pro. It's almost like an addiction... I want it, but I can't tell you why. I think this is a large part of the reason why I have kept saying over and over again, I really WANT Vista to work, to be better than XP, or at least as good, at least as fast and reliable.
Maybe Microsoft has slipped some of that subliminal mind-control software into the Aero interface... it's taking control of me... I have to have it...
No! This disk is coming out again this evening, as soon as I do a bit of testing with the Wireless-N connection, because I've updated the firmware in the router since I last had Vista running. But then it's coming out, and I'm going back to XP until SP1 is available. I swear!
jw 7/4/2008
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