Archive for vista tag
One week with a MacBook Pro 17″
It has been one week since I picked up my new MacBook Pro 17″ to replace my aging first-generation 15″ model.
My initial concern was that the size and weight would be unwieldy after 4 years of lugging around a 15″ MacBook Pro and a prior to that a Titanium PowerBook G4. The actual problem was that my trusty Samsonite Trunk & Co. backpack could not accommodate it and that I’d have to hope Santa would deliver something a little bigger. Being properly kitted up might reveal if the dimensions and weight are uncomfortable so expect an update once I’ve travelled with the beast.
The screen is fantastic, a little brighter, and provides me with a desktop-like experience in terms of real estate thanks to the combination of the increased size and the high-definition 1920×1200 option. I had examined the glossy finish in-store and found having my face and the rest of the store glaring back at me far too distracting for real work (it might be nice for watching DVD’s in the dark I guess) and so went with the matte finish. Surprisingly it is a little more reflective than the older MBP but not overly so and it does make removing unwelcome fingerprints easier.
One problem I had with m 15″ was that heavy use of Visual Studio within Parallels wasn’t always cutting it on performance. Compilation was faster than the cheap HP/Compaq desktop I’d been using but still wasn’t snappy enough to keep my attention tightly focused ;-)
I went with top options – a 2.6GHz processor coupled with 4GB of RAM and a 7200RPM 200GB drive – to ensure maximum performance. Mac OS X and native Vista did not disappoint and felt like a speedy desktop despite Vista being 32-bit and limited to 3GB of RAM until Apple ship a 64-bit ready Boot Camp drivers and tools.
My .NET development typically takes place inside a virtual machine – previously Parallels but now evaluating VMware Fusion with its enticing dual-core and 64-bit guest OS support. Both Parallels and Fusion had similar almost-native performance in the disk and processor department on my 15″ according to Vista’s performance index and I’ve yet to rerun those (stay tuned). Whichever gets Aero/DirectX 9Ex shader support first will be my home for a while.
Battery life was a big surprise offering over 3 hours and I certainly feel less conscious of where the next power feed is coming from although that is partly due to the poor battery on my old machine being rather tired and worn.
One big disappointment is the keyboard. Firstly it is the same size as the 15″ model which leaves the extra space to the speaker grille. Whilst the speakers do sound far superior – good enough to actually listen to music on – I couldn’t help but feel a wider enter key, a second ctrl and a little f-key spacing could have gone a long way. What is more concerning is that many keys do not register if hit off-centre even by a slight amount :(
There are still some things to try:
- Games under native Vista taking advantage of the Nvidia 8600M GT chip
- Time Machining my MyBook Pro external drive over FireWire 800 (800 Mb/s) instead of USB2 (400 Mb/s)
- Burning DVD performance
- Removing DVD drive (UJ-85J FBZ8) region protection (RPC) to play my DVD collection
[)amien
Windows Experience Index on MacBook Pro 2GHz compared
I just got the opportunity to try out the latest version of VMware and thought I’d do a quick Windows Experience Index on Boot Camp, Parallels and VMware to see what the performance is like before my new MacBook Pro 17″ arrives (hopefully on Friday!)
When I installed Leopard on my machine I took the opportunity to carve out a dedicated 20GB partition again to put a fresh install of Vista on. As well as being able to boot natively this also now means I can run my single Windows partition switching between native, Parallels or VMware at will which admittedly drives Windows Activation crazy.
Host machine
| Hardware | MacBook Pro 2GHz “MacBookPro1,1″ |
|---|---|
| Memory | 2048MB DDR2 667MHz |
| Processor | 2.0GHz Core Duo |
| Graphics | ATI Radeon X1600 256MB |
| Disk | 100GB 5400RPM |
| Operating system | Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.1 |
Configuration
| Memory | 848MB (Virtual machines only) |
|---|---|
| Disk | 20GB Boot Camp partition |
| Operating system | Microsoft Vista Ultimate Edition 32-bit |
Testing notes
- No other applications running in OS X or Vista
- Full-screen mode
- Vendors guest OS tools & drivers installed
Scores
| VMware 1.1 62573 |
Parallels 3.0 5570 beta |
Boot Camp 2.0 drivers |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Processor | 4.7 | 4.7 | 4.7 |
| Memory (RAM) | 3.9 | 3.9 | 4.9 |
| Graphics | 1.9 | 1.9 | 4.1 |
| Gaming graphics | 1.0 | 1.0 | 4.4 |
| Primary hard disk | 5.9 | 5.9 | 5.9 |
| Overall | 1.0 | 1.0 | 4.1 |
Thoughts
Processor: A little surprising given that VMware supports multiple cores but that Parallels doesn’t.
Memory: To be expected given that the VM was only running with less RAM.
Graphics: Disappointing and likely caused by the VM vendors graphics drivers not being WDM which based.
Gaming graphics: Very disappointing and caused by lack of DirectX 9 graphics support.
Hard disk: Like processor this is a pleasant surprise.
After my new 17″ MacBook Pro arrives (hopefully this Friday) I will produce another set of scores which should show how much faster the 2.6GHz is with all the options and let me compare like-for-like on the memory front.
I also want to run some Visual Studio 2008 build time comparisons (probably of SubSonic) because compilations are what really counts ;-) If you have any further suggestions for benchmarks, leave a comment!
[)amien
AnkhSVN (Visual Studio Subversion integration) on Vista
Try the new AnkhSVN 1.0.3 preview release
As a number of people have found our popular free Subversion plug-in for Visual Studio, AnkhSVN, has an issue with Vista but a fix is at hand!
Until we can get another build of AnkhSVN out simply:
- Uninstall AnkhSVN
- Run one of the following registry files on your machine
- Reinstall AnkhSVN choosing the Install for all users option
Download AnkhSVN fix 32-bit (Windows Registry REG) (2 KB)
Download AnkhSVN fix 64-bit (Windows Registry REG) (2 KB)
These keys also contain the Visual Studio 2008 fix and should work fine on Window XP too.
Thanks to Jon Skeet, Arild Fines and Jesse Johnston who helped find the solution.
[)amien
Vista: no pretty picture for me
The Microsoft blogosphere is full of posts announcing the release of Windows Longhorn Vista to manufacturing.
It’s done – the code is finalised and any bugs and fixes will have to wait for Microsoft Update to deliver.
What can we look forward to?
Ease of use: New start bar
I’m fine with the one I have – though there are a multitude of free alternatives.
Ease of use: Thumbails of documents in Explorer
The only time thumbnails make sense is for pictures or occasionally videos and XP already does that. I really can’t tell which document is which from a 64×64 pixel tile of the front page.
Ease of use: Thumnails of minimized windows in the task bar
Already have something very similar using the alt-tab switcher in the Power Toys kit for XP.
Ease of use: Task switching via a 3D show of Windows
Not needed, see above. I’d probably use it as much as I use Expose – ie. rarely.
Ease of use: Glass-like interface
I’m not sure how this semi-transparency actually helps. It doesn’t really on Mac OS X and that doesn’t use the blur shader Aero does. Also won’t work under virtual machines.
Security: Finer grain of user control & family safety settings
Probably of some use to parents and control freaks.
Windows Defender anti-spyware included
Plenty of free alternatives.
Search faster and save search ‘folders’
The message from MS is search don’t organise. Personally I only search when something is misplaced – I’d rather not adopt misplacement as a filing strategy. It’s difficult to ensure all your files are safely backed up if you don’t even know where they are. Free alternatives available.
Internet Explorer 7
Aavailable for XP.
Sidebar & gadgets
Sorry, I’m a full-screens task switching person and if I really want gadgets there’s Konfabulator for free right now.
Performance: Sleep mode
An interesting mode – standby but with a backup copy on disk. Could be useful on the very rare occasion my PC is asleep when a power-cut hits.
Performance: SuperFetch
Windows thinks it can pre-cache my apps based on a schedule? I’m not convinced it won’t be loading VS 2005 into memory just as I’m about to fire off a game of HL2.
Performance: ReadyBoost
Use USB storage instead of buying RAM because it’s confusing to know what RAM to buy. Probably not a big hit with the tech savvy.
Performance: ReadyDrive
Replacing the RAM cache on hard drives with Flash RAM. I don’t see why it needs an OS upgrade to achieve that. If you have a UPS or a rock solid electrical supply you could just turn on write back caching.
Windows backup: System restore
Apparently even better than that in XP. I can’t think of a scenario where it wasn’t already adequate.
Windows backup: Backup
Could be very useful for some people especially if it doesn’t mind the fact those users no longer know where their files are thanks to search.
Myself, I’m using Subversion as a distributed backup and sychronisation platform.
Windows backup: Previous versions
Nice idea, could be useful to some. Again, Subversion here.
Networking: Lots of new features
I can’t remember the last time I had a problem with networking. Network map looks pretty.
Windows slideshow
Requires a laptop with necessary hardware.
Speech recognition
Somebody somewhere honestly believes we want to tell our computers what to do verbally. Quite how this would work in an office I have no idea – people talking all over each other and revealing company and personal secrets… Not to mention sore throats from talking all day and germ spreading.
And thats the picture for *accurate* voice recognition. Next!
Help & feedback, Windows Update
You’ve got to be kidding me.
Windows Mail & Calendar
Sorry, long since switched to web & mobile phone respectively.
Windows Photo Gallery, Movie Maker
iLife.
Windows Media Center
Interesting that it’s now included but my home server acts as my media portal. There’s no guarantee that Vista Server will include the media center when it finally arrives much later.
Windows Media Player 11
Available for XP.
Gaming
Parental controls: no thanks. Easy access: I have desktop icons. 360 controller support: Available for XP.
Development
Visual Studio 2003 isn’t supported on Vista and thats the only version of Visual Studio that supports all those .NET 1.1 apps.
In summary
If you are an experienced user you probably already have everything you need without Vista.
Some of what’s new is already available for XP, other additions are playing catch-up to Apple oblivious to the fact that Mac users are slowly moving to web-based alternatives.
It seems the interesting new take on licencing has been revoked and Microsoft is keeping a bit quiet about the whole Trusted Computing plan that makes your PC do what Microsoft want and not what you want.
And all this can be yours from a much as £325 ($617 USD) for Windows Ultimate according to Amazon.co.uk!
UK upgrade pricing has been announced but being that Windows Ultimate actually costs $399 in the USA it would seem they are using an unfavourable exchange rate of $1.22 instead of the $1.90 the real world is using.
Nothing like profiteering off the English I guess. By this estimation the US price of $159 for Home Premium Upgrade will work out at £130 ($247).
Yikes! This release has as much appeal as Windows ME. Still, the packaging looks pretty:
I guess they learnt something from their own iPod packaging parody video after all.
[)amien