Back to XP (I Think) - Why so slow?!

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FirmamentFX
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2008/05/29 21:37:46 (permalink)

Back to XP (I Think) - Why so slow?!

Well, it's been a while since I actually used XP (or any music software for that matter - live music with REAL instruments took over my life for a few months... It was eye opening ). For my "personal" computing I have been using Vista lately.

So, I reformatted and reinstalled XP. Why so slow in comparison? Was it always thus? It's been so long I can't remember XP very well.

For those who dual boot (or run more than one system) - is XP significantly slower? SP3 includes the microcode and multi processor updates (at least, that's what it tells me when I try and install them on top of SP3) so it's not that.

I never thought Vista SP1 was super quick, but it seems to fly compared to XP.

Shame a few of my vital apps are not Vista compatible

Cheers,

Martin
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    keith
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    RE: Back to XP (I Think) - Why so slow?! 2008/05/31 12:18:01 (permalink)

    ORIGINAL: FirmamentFX
    So, I reformatted and reinstalled XP. Why so slow in comparison? Was it always thus? It's been so long I can't remember XP very well.


    Shouldn't be too slow, unless you have a lot of crap running on it, like drive indexing and all that nonsense. My old, stripped down XP SP1 box boots fairly quickly and only consumes about 60MB at boot. Nothing sluggish about it, which is pretty good for an old 2.6GHz PIV. Now, if I load up a bunch of OS and third party services then those definately take their toll... so I don't do that.

    One thing to consider with Vista is that it does a lot of caching at various levels, essesentialy using all available physical memory. Such features will definately give you the impression of a much snappier OS...
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    JonD
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    RE: Back to XP (I Think) - Why so slow?! 2008/05/31 15:49:17 (permalink)

    ORIGINAL: FirmamentFX

    ....SP3 includes the microcode and multi processor updates (at least, that's what it tells me when I try and install them on top of SP3) so it's not that.


    ...
    Martin


    I wouldn't be too sure. SP3 made one of my two home PCs unbelievably sluggish (I'm doing a restore from image later). I think it's been okay for most people, but in my IT support job, I've recently seen some odd things as a result of the SP3 update -- so I wouldn't rule it out as the culprit in your case.

    JD
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    FirmamentFX
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    RE: Back to XP (I Think) - Why so slow?! 2008/05/31 21:33:30 (permalink)
    ORIGINAL: keith
    My old, stripped down XP SP1 box boots fairly quickly and only consumes about 60MB at boot. Nothing sluggish about it, which is pretty good for an old 2.6GHz PIV.


    That's very good! My base SP2 install (IIS / indexing / system restore etc etc etc turned off) takes about 140MB... With the nonsense Nero and Acrobat seem to insist on running it goes up to about 160MB, which is annoying, but on a 4GB machine not the end of the world.

    ORIGINAL: JonD
    I wouldn't be too sure. SP3 made one of my two home PCs unbelievably sluggish (I'm doing a restore from image later). I think it's been okay for most people, but in my IT support job, I've recently seen some odd things as a result of the SP3 update -- so I wouldn't rule it out as the culprit in your case.


    Hmm.... ok. I would have hoped that an SP would help, rather than hinder... Gotta love MS . My commit charge and CPU load seem to be the same as my SP2 experiences though.

    That means I will have to completely reinstall XP SP2 (my restore image is now SP3...) and THEN install a fresh Vista (to get the bootloader on the C drive) before then restoring my graphics Vista image to the D drive.

    There goes my Sunday

    Cheers!

    Martin
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