So I reinstalled Vista the other day after about a year to get rid of some bloatware and the remains of a few uninstalls. (I know, VISTA R SLOW LOLOL but it did start up in about 20 seconds when I first bought this box in March 2007)

Despite all the doom and gloom spewed about Vista on the internets, the reinstall actually went very well: everything worked out of the box, I had internet without doing anything, and even the only driver that didn't come with the DVD (video card) was automatically installed by Windows Update along with about 48 other updates. I even succeeded in installing Firefox while Windows was patching, then installing Photoshop while Office was installing, all without a reboot of course. The only things Vista didn't do for me was increase my screen resolution, turn on Aero and change the function of the damnable shutdown button in the start menu from 'enter sleep mode and hang due to Nvidia's bugged drivers' to 'shut down'. Woot... until my first reboot:

...the computer now boots up slower than before. The progress bar disappears much earlier, but then there is a very long silence on a black screen before the little glowing Windows logo, which used to appear almost instantly after the progress bar before I reinstalled. Total startup time, not counting BIOS: 40 seconds, up from 30 seconds.

Huh? A polluted Vista install is faster than a newly installed one? Well, now I get why people complain that Vista boots too slowly, but what the hell...?

It's called SuperFetch. Because you did a reinstall, Vista is going to have to re-"learn" what to preload and what to ignore. Also you might look at: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=246

clively:

It's called SuperFetch. Because you did a reinstall, Vista is going to have to re-"learn" what to preload and what to ignore. Also you might look at: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=246

 

Agreed, I also question how many times the OP has rebooted since the reinstall, since the first few times will be slow anyway due to various components finishing their installs, as well as all those updates.

Brother Laz:

So I reinstalled Vista the other day after about a year ...

Woah. TRWTF is that Vista has been out for a year, and I've used it exactly twice.

1. In Staples, I hit Windows-Tab just to see the WTF that is Flip 3D
2. At work I spent about 15 minutes on it just for a quick and dirty test for a piece of software

 

djork:

Brother Laz:

So I reinstalled Vista the other day after about a year ...

Woah. TRWTF is that Vista has been out for a year, and I've used it exactly twice.

1. In Staples, I hit Windows-Tab just to see the WTF that is Flip 3D
2. At work I spent about 15 minutes on it just for a quick and dirty test for a piece of software

Daim, D, you beat me by 1 time! Im waiting till Vista is 2-3 yrs old and has a ram requirement of 512 ram to work great. Once that happens its vista all de way!

dlikhten:

Daim, D, you beat me by 1 time! Im waiting till Vista is 2-3 yrs old and has a ram requirement of 512 ram to work great. Once that happens its vista all de way!

 

Do you just randomly hit the keyboard? Or was that supposed to be english?

dlikhten:

Daim, D, you beat me by 1 time! Im waiting till Vista is 2-3 yrs old and has a ram requirement of 512 ram to work great. Once that happens its vista all de way!

We had a 35 hour course on Vista at school, I found it to be a really pretty version of XP, until I turned off the theming service, at which point I noticed they updated the start menu to something slightly more interesting and more keyboard friendly, and added UAC (which I like because it is a good idea and behaves alot like gksudo). I might try it on my laptop (which has 512MB of RAM) just to see how it deals with it (our school comps had 2GB).

Lingerance:

I might try it on my laptop (which has 512MB of RAM) just to see how it deals with it (our school comps had 2GB).

 

If you turn off Aero (should be off by default on 512mb) it should be reasonable.

Brother Laz:

So I reinstalled Vista the other day after about a year to get rid of some bloatware and the remains of a few uninstalls.

 

It's been said before, but it bears repeating: The Real WTF is that some bloatware and uninstalls would necessitate the reinstallation of the operating system after a year.

it most likely didn't "necessitate" a reinstallation of the OS, it's just that the OP either couldn't be bothered cleaning the system themselves or just thought it was quicker and cleaner to fresh install.

Tann San:

it most likely didn't "necessitate" a reinstallation of the OS, it's just that the OP either couldn't be bothered cleaning the system themselves or just thought it was quicker and cleaner to fresh install.

 

I understand that.  The point still remains: it shouldn't be simpler to reinstall an OS than to clean it. 

MasterPlanSoftware:

If you turn off Aero (should be off by default on 512mb) it should be reasonable.

My brother ran without Aero but with 512MB of RAM and themes turned on and found it slow, so I was wondering if turning off themes would make it seem not slow. I didn't use his computer other than when I needed to maintain it (twice).

Lingerance:

MasterPlanSoftware:

If you turn off Aero (should be off by default on 512mb) it should be reasonable.

My brother ran without Aero but with 512MB of RAM and themes turned on and found it slow, so I was wondering if turning off themes would make it seem not slow. I didn't use his computer other than when I needed to maintain it (twice).

 

It will definitely be slower than XP on the same hardware, but that should be expected.

dlikhten:

and has a ram requirement of 512 ram to work great. Once that happens its vista all de way!

is that MB or GB?

DaEagle:

dlikhten:

and has a ram requirement of 512 ram to work great. Once that happens its vista all de way!

is that MB or GB?

 

Like I said, it looks like a monkey walked across the keys...

MasterPlanSoftware:

Like I said, it looks like a monkey walked across the keys...

Is that a helper monkey? Where can I get one from? Can it write VB.net cos most people around here can't!

Well that really depends on how messed up the system is. For all we know the OP has been viewing some rather nasty web sites and downloading any old crap off the net. I think the blame for crapping the OS up is down to whatever was put on it to crap it up in the firstplace.

Brother Laz:

The progress bar disappears much earlier, but then there is a very long silence on a black screen before the little glowing Windows logo,

Sounds like driver issue.

Which driver?

Who knows. 

MasterPlanSoftware:

It will definitely be slower than XP on the same hardware, but that should be expected.

Hm.

Is it folly to expect that the next generation of your software will be faster and lighter in some respects? That software development is not just about tacking more new features onto an existing program?

Should it not be somewhat expected that turning off all the Aeuioreo eyecandy in Vista will turn it into something with the weight of XP?

DaEagle:

dlikhten:

and has a ram requirement of 512 ram to work great. Once that happens its vista all de way!

is that MB or GB?

I think it's 512 RAM modules.

MasterPlanSoftware:

Lingerance:

I might try it on my laptop (which has 512MB of RAM) just to see how it deals with it (our school comps had 2GB).

 

If you turn off Aero (should be off by default on 512mb) it should be reasonable.

Paying 300 bucks for a 'reasonable' running OS sounds like a ripoff to me.

Maybe he's in Kazakhstan, and needs 512 sheep to power his computer?

ropata:

Maybe he's in Kazakhstan, and needs 512 sheep to power his computer?

I don't think he is able to run Vista then, 512 sheep don't have that much of memory. Also they forget unreasonably fast (well, you might consider that a feature, as the RAM will never be full and you don't need a swap file).

# The Brillant Paula Bean
# Author::    derula
# Copyright:: Copyright (c) 2005-2008 Paula Bean
# License::   Originally distributed under a
#             proprietary license by Paula Bean.
#             Ruby port by derula published
#             under the same terms as Ruby's.

# This module provides a method to return the
# brillance of Paula Bean. This can be achieved
# by calling the module method get_paula.
module Paula_Bean

  # This constant stores the essence of Paula
  # Bean's brillance. This is a private
  # constant, so you MAY NOT use
  # Paula_Bean::PAULA to access it! Please use
  # the get_paula method instead.
  PAULA = "Brillant"

  # Returns Paula Bean's brillance.
  def self.get_paula
    return PAULA
  end
end

bstorer:

It's been said before, but it bears repeating: The Real WTF is that some bloatware and uninstalls would necessitate the reinstallation of the operating system after a year.

it's not a WTF, it's a tradition.

dhromed:

MasterPlanSoftware:

It will definitely be slower than XP on the same hardware, but that should be expected.

Hm.

Is it folly to expect that the next generation of your software will be faster and lighter in some respects? That software development is not just about tacking more new features onto an existing program?

Should it not be somewhat expected that turning off all the Aeuioreo eyecandy in Vista will turn it into something with the weight of XP?

 

I have never seen an example of a newer OS that provides more features being faster than an old one with less features. So no, this is not my expectation.