Tech journalism

by Swapnil Rustagi

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Many softwares becoming bloatware

Sunday, February 10, 2013 6:42:09 AM

There are many software which were great and lightweight some time ago, maybe 2-3 years ago and are now no longer the same lightweight software they once were. They have now become bloated with extra features and many more things.

The reason I am writing this article is, on my Windows XP SP3 computer (with 632 MB RAM), I had Avast! Free Anti-Virus 7 installed. Since the installation of version 7.x my computer had become slower. I have been an Avast! user since version 5.0. After getting annoyed with the slow speed, having to uncheck Chrome install on every update and Avast! consuming more than 100,100 K (according to Windows Task Manager) of memory on each virus database update (thus slowing down the working to a large extent) - I decided to try Avast! 5.1. Avast! 7.0 and 6.0 (and even 8.0 Beta) use the same virus protection system as Avast! 5.x - so there is no problem like in case of other Anti-virus solutions of stopping to provide virus database updates for old versions.
Right now I have Avast! version 5.1 installed and my computer is so much faster than before. Even virus database updates are quite fast and smooth (using low RAM, around 15,000 - 20,000 K). Even when I use an anti-virus which was released around 2 years ago - the protection offered is unmatched by any other free anti-virus software. This is because Avast! was excellent and I hope it improves in the future. Avast! 6.0 and 7.0 just added an AutoSandbox and a Script shield to the free version, apart from regular fixes.

Another example we can take is uTorrent. uTorrent is one software which is an example of excellent programming. uTorrent 2.2 added Apps which are not really required. Despite that, for users who did not use Apps, nothing bloated the software - and the installer size was increased just by 70-80 KB. However with the uTorrent 3.x series - the software which used to be less than 400 KB - is now almost a megabyte. And uTorrent 2.2 is just as good as the latest version of uTorrent when it comes to BitTorrent features.

Then we always have Adobe software. The improvements made in Adobe software have never justified the change in installation size and RAM and CPU usage.

There are many examples of great software which have become bloatware. Ofcourse you will not be affected the increased CPU/RAM usage if you use new computers (which are like only 1-2 years old) but if the 6 year old computers are affected by the increased requirements of these software - do you expect the latest versions of the same software to run without slowness on your computer maybe 4 years later.

The thing is: Do these software really need to be bloated? No. If the developers remembered what is the purpose of the software and stopped adding features to these software just for the sake of justifying a new version - we would see fast and lightweight software.

1 comment

My experience with Ubuntu 12.04

Monday, January 7, 2013 6:21:22 AM

Well after using Ubuntu 12.04 for more than 2 months, I want to share my experience and most importantly my thoughts about it. Prior to actually using Ubuntu, I knew very few things about Linux operating systems. I knew what the User Interface of Linux distros looks like since I had seen images of them on many websites. I knew the Command Prompt is called the Terminal and I knew that Hardware and Software compatibility are fine, if not excellent and I should be able to find most drivers in case I need to.

After installation, the user interface seemed quite easy to use. It was very similar to Windows, with differences in arrangement. The apps on the left side (the Launcher) similar to Windows Taskbar, with Dash Home acting as a Start menu and the locked apps as pinned shortcuts. The window buttons (Close, Minimize and Maximize) being placed on the left instead of the right. The upper right area being similar to the Windows Taskbar Notification area. If I could rearrange the placement of the items (like setting the Launcher position to bottom) I could get a user interface very close to the Windows one.



Ubuntu is very responsive and fast like a new Windows installation. But even after installing a few softwares and drivers, it's performance is still nearly the same.

I can use Ubuntu for everything except for working with presentations, spreadsheets and documents. While I do have LibreOffice and OpenOffice, Microsoft Office 2010 is vastly superior to them. But most of the time, I only do Web browsing, so I can use Ubuntu almost everyday.

One thing I find is Windows is quite "simpler" than Ubuntu. An example is - using letters for drives in Windows. Referring to drives with drive letters is very much simpler than using "X GB Filesystem" (used in the Nautilus File Manager) or "/media/1C3A867D3A865424" to refer to drive paths. Such things can be noticed in various things. For example, software installation and un-installation, configuring system settings.

Problems and small annoyances

After installation, Ubuntu could not find drivers for the built-in Broadcom Wireless network adapter. But clicking the Network icon only revealed that Wireless network was disconnected and both Wireless and Networking were enabled. It was only after viewing the System Settings > Network > Wireless section that I realized that the problem was "Firmware missing". I think there should have been a notification for a driver missing, instead of me checking it out. After some searches on the web, I found a step-by-step simple-to-follow tutorial to install the Broadcom driver, and got my wireless connection working. I still have minor annoyances with Wireless, like sometimes asking for password for the network, even though it's already saved and all I have to do is click "Continue" or something like that. But it occurs occasionally, therefore a "minor" annoyance.

I could not find a central Device Manager application, a System Information application and an application for management of Services. These are quite basic things. There might be commands to achieve the same thing in Terminal - but a user interface is must.

The bad part of my experience with Ubuntu 12.04 is - my right-click button on my Synaptics Touchpad acts as a left-click. Web searches give me solutions that do not apply to me in one or the other way. For most right-clicks I select the item and press the "right-click key" on my keyboard. However, such a thing does not work for right-clicking things like browser tabs. By accident, I found out that if I touch the Touchpad on two specific points near the bottom right corner, it acts as a right-click. But as I said, these are quite specific - means I need to do so many times to achieve a single right-click. Despite the workarounds, it's a very major annoyance. While generally I have seen touchpads and separate left-click and right-click buttons, this netbook has the left and right-click buttons integrated with the touchpad. And while Ubuntu isn't Windows, I expect full compatibility with something so important and considering it's not something very new - this netbook was purchased in 2010. So by this time, it should have been fixed or have had a decent workaround.

Conclusion

Considering the fact that Ubuntu is a free operating system, I am very pleased with it. Ubuntu is a good operating system and I want it to become a great operating system - in terms of hardware and software compatibility and user friendliness.

No comments

Everything about Windows 8

Thursday, October 25, 2012 2:03:09 PM

Windows 8, the next version of Windows, has a lot of improvements and enhancements like every new Windows release, but what makes it really different is that many things have been changed.

The first and the most important change is the introduction of a new kind of apps called Metro apps/Windows Store apps. The Start menu has been removed - it can only be added by downloading and installing third-party softwares.

In place of the Start menu, the new Start Screen is used to go to the Desktop, open Metro Apps and desktop apps and searching for files and settings. (though the desktop search is still there when you are in Desktop mode).

The Start Screen from Windows 8 RTM Enterprise edition

One thing to note is that you cannot launch Metro apps on screen resolutions lower than 1024 x 768. While that is fine for most computers, many netbooks are locked to a maximum resolution of 1024 x 600. So if a Windows 8 user wants to use Metro apps on a 1024 x 600 resolution netbook, then the user needs to do a hack to enable a 1024 x 768 resolution option. (setting the value of Display1_DownScalingSupported registry entry from 0 to 1 in the registry by searching for it).

The Charms Bar is used to access power options (like Shutdown, Restart and Sleep), and other settings like Wireless, Display Brightness and the Metro Control Panel. In case of Metro Apps, it is used to access important functions like printing and settings.




Windows Aero Glass, the interface introduced with Windows Vista and also used in Windows 7 has been removed. The Aero Glass transparency is no longer present in Windows 8.

File Explorer windows from Windows 8 RTM Enterprise

As you see in the above screenshot, Windows Explorer (renamed to File Explorer in Windows 8) now has the Ribbon UI.

Finding uses for Metro apps

Metro apps can serve many useful purposes too. Most apps included by default in Windows 8 RTM are quite useful. Well if you take a look at the Metro Apps shown in the Start Screen image shown in the starting of this post, there is a Mail app, People app, Messaging app, Calender app, Photos app, Weather app, Maps app, News app and Skydrive app. There are some other apps also like Windows Reader, Videos app, Games app, Finance app, Music app, Bing search app, Camera app, Travel app and more. There is also a Metro version of Internet Explorer included by default, which does not support plug-ins.

According to me, Mail and Reader are the apps that will be useful for almost everybody. The Mail app is a mail client that downloads the e-mails for last two weeks (an update for the Mail, Calender, People and Messaging app suite, released in October, the two weeks setting can be changed, the update also adds full IMAP support) and Reader is an app for reading PDFs, XPS and OXPS (OpenXPS). Both are extremely light on memory and CPU.

The Mail app, showing mails from my My Opera Mail account and the Add Accounts menu on right.

And ofcourse, there are hundreds (and should be in thousands a few weeks after Windows 8 general availability on October 26 this year) of Metro apps to download and install from the Store - paid and free, in many categories such as Games, Productivity, Tools, Sports, Books and Reference, News and more.

Features and enhancements

The improved Task Manager

Task Manager has been vastly improved in Windows 8. When Task Manager is started for the first time, it starts with a small window showing the running applications and allowing you to terminate them (the Applications tab of Task Manager in previous versions of Windows).

Clicking the 'More details' button opens the complete Task Manager which opens with the Processes tab by default. The running processes are shown by their names (descriptions), grouped into three categories: Apps, Background Processes and Windows processes. CPU, Memory, Disk and Network utilization for each process is displayed.

The next tab is the Performance tab. It shows CPU, Disk, Memory, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi utilization. There are many details in each category.

The App history tab shows the resource usage for all Metro apps since the date of user account creation. The Startup tab can be used to view and disable startup programs. The Users and the Services tab are almost similar to Task Manager in old Windows versions, except that the Users tab also displays the CPU, Memory, Disk and Network utilization for each user. The Details tab is exactly similar to the Processes tab in previous versions of Task Manager.

Improved file transfer and filename collision experience

In Windows 8, the file copy/move/delete operation progress dialogs have been updated, providing a graph view of the file transfer speed. Windows 8 also brings the ability to pause file transfers and resume them later.


The filename collision dialog, has also been updated.

Clicking "Compare info for both files" shows the details of the files in the source and destination.


Also, when a multiple file operations are in progress, the same window shows all the copy/delete operations, in comparison to separate windows for each copy/delete operation.

Mount ISO and VHD files

Windows 7 added the ability to burn ISO files to discs. But what was missing was the ability to mount ISO files as virtual CD drives. USB Flash drives are extensively replacing the use of CDs and DVDs, so people mostly mount ISO files and copy them to hard disks or USB Flash drive. Windows 8 finally brings built-in ISO image mounting.



Similarly, mounting VHD files as hard disks is also made quite easy.

Windows To Go

Windows To Go is a feature exclusive to the Windows 8 Enterprise edition. Windows To Go is a copy of Windows 8 on a USB drive which can be used to boot to Windows 8 from the USB drive. It requires a 32 GB USB Flash drive. USB 2.0 drives are supported and provide fine performance, however for excellent performance, USB 3.0 drives should be used.



One thing to note is that not all all USB drives can be used to create Windows To Go workspaces. Use of uncertified USB drives can result in errors during creation.

Recovery options - Reset and Refresh

Windows 8 adds two recovery options - making Windows recovery faster and quite easier. The options are called Reset and Refresh. Both Reset and Refresh options boot into Windows Recovery Environment, format the Windows partition, and install a fresh copy of Windows 8, but the Refresh option allows you to preserve your personal data, important OS settings and Metro Apps.

The options can be accessed by through the Metro Control Panel (in the General category), or when the PC is not able to boot, the options can also be accessed via Windows Recovery Environment.

Other features and enhancements

  • Native USB 3.0 support
  • Windows Live ID/Microsoft account integration
  • Better multi-monitor support (including the ability to set different wallpapers for each display)
  • File History - creates automatic backups of files located in specified locations to external storage devices (replaces Previous Versions)
  • Hyper-V (available on 64-bit Windows 8 Pro and Enterprise)
  • Storage Spaces (Organization of physical disks into storage pools, and use these virtual drives like any other drives)
  • DirectX 11.1 and WDDM 1.2
  • Default Included games now replaced with Metro app versions along with XBox Live integration (not all games have replacements yet)

Windows 8 system requirements

  • Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster with support for PAE, NX, and SSE2 (more info)
  • RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit)
  • Hard disk space: 16 GB (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
  • Graphics card: Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM driver

Additional requirements-

  • Client Hyper-V requires a 64-bit system with second level address translation (SLAT) capabilities and additional 2 GB of RAM (Windows 8 Pro only)
  • To access the Windows Store and to download and run apps, you need a screen resolution of at least 1024 x 768.
  • To snap apps, you need a screen resolution of at least 1366 x 768
  • Secure boot requires firmware that supports UEFI v2.3.1 Errata B and has the Microsoft Windows Certification Authority in the UEFI signature database

    While Windows 8's system requirements are similar to that of Windows 7, one thing to note is that the processor must support NX bit and PAE - which is a new requirement for Windows 8.

    Windows 8 Editions

    Windows 8 is available in 4 main editions.
    Windows 8 is the basic edition, and includes all the standard features.

    Windows 8 Pro includes all features found in Windows 8 (referring to the basic edition), and also provides Hyper-V, BitLocker, Boot from VHD, Domain Join, Encrypting File System, Group Policy and Remote Desktop (host).

    Windows 8 Enterprise, as usual available only via Volume Licensing, has all the features of Windows 8 Pro, and includes some more Enterprise targeted features such as Windows To Go, AppLocker and DirectAccess.

    Windows 8 RT, a special edition, is available only as pre-installed on devices with ARM processors such as tablets. It does not support the desktop applications and only runs Metro Apps/WinRT apps. Office 2013 Home and Student is included, which does not include a few features such as Macros, add-ins, searching and recording audio/video files in OneNote.

    Windows 8 Pro with Media Center

    DVD playback and Windows Media Center are not included in any edition of Windows 8. Instead, they can be installed in Windows 8 Pro (only in Windows 8 Pro, and even NOT in Enterprise edition) by installing a "media pack" add-on. It is available free till January 2013 but after that users will have to pay for it.

    Windows 8 (basic edition) users can upgrade to Windows 8 Pro AND get Windows Media Center by purchasing the Windows 8 Pro Pack for $69.99.

    Upgrade Offers

    Till January 2013, Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista and Windows 7 can be upgraded to Windows 8 Pro for $39.99. New Windows 7 PCs bought till January 2013 can upgrade to Windows 8 for just $14.99.

    Conclusion

    Windows 8 is a great upgrade (faster, uses less RAM and has great features) and it's just a matter of few hours and Windows 8 would hit general availability. The removal of Start menu and the accessing of power options might confuse average users. Let's see how it goes.

12 comments

Office Web Apps Preview: Office Web Apps now better than ever

Saturday, July 21, 2012 1:19:01 PM

Just got news from Neowin.net about Microsoft's new Office Web Apps Preview which Microsoft announced on it's Office Next blog.

Reading the blogpost, anyone can understand that Microsoft has made many great enhancements in the preview.

"You can try out the new Office Web Apps on SkyDrive by signing in using this special link or you can participate in the Office 365 Preview." Microsoft says.

These are screenshots of Word, Excel and PowerPoint Preview Web Apps, in Internet Explorer 8, Windows XP SP3.



As you can see, there are many more layout tools than before. According to Microsoft

"You can now change the page size, orientation, margins, paragraph spacing, indentation, and much more. We've also significantly updated the UI so these changes are now WYSIWIG while editing."



For Excel, Microsoft says "The Excel Web App now supports PivotTable editing, QueryTables, richer charts, new types of slicers, and much more." "Better copy/paste, improved undo, and the ability to print in Excel." There's also a new feature called "Excel Surveys".

"Ever wanted to collect data from a group of people directly into a spreadsheet? Now you can, easily, without them having to worry about where to enter the data because they are presented with a clean, simple, survey."

According to a comment by a Microsoft employee, Excel Surveys won't be available on Office Web Apps Preview till next month.

The employee also said in a reply to a question asked by someone in comments that -

"We're getting closer with the data validation support. In previous versions Excel Web App wouldn't even load files that contained data validation and now we do. We're still working on adding the ability to interact with the data validation though - stay tuned, we know it's an important feature."



Drawing tools (or "Shapes") have been enhanced in PowerPoint Web App. "You can now add, resize, format, rotate, duplicate, and style a wide variety of shapes." Microsoft says.

Also, added are Animations and Transitions, though only 2-3 animations and transitions are available at this point.

Also, now when you view a PowerPoint presentation containing videos, you can now see those videos with standard playing controls.

Other common new features include co-authoring among all Office web apps (previously only Excel and OneNote were supported), commenting in documents and presentations, performance improvements, many improvements for touch devices and more.

These are really nice improvements, and I am looking forward to more of them. Office Web Apps, with all these new features, is excellent for simple editing and creating simple documents, presentations and spreadsheets.

WARNING: Many editing features are broken in Opera (using 12.00 here). Please use other browsers for testing.

4 comments

Why I still like the old Windows XP

Sunday, June 3, 2012 5:27:28 AM

Many people using Windows 7 recommend people using Windows XP to upgrade to Windows 7 and consider Windows XP obsolete. But can anyone of them really tell why to consider Windows XP obsolete? What technical improvements do Windows Vista or 7 have over Windows XP? An updated Start menu, which can be very well achieved using ViStart? Or some more eye-candy effects which can be very well achieved in Windows XP, just see http://www.askvg.com/transform-windows-xp-into-windows-7-without-using-customization-pack/

All this means that there is almost nothing in Windows 7 that can't be achieved on Windows XP. For BitLocker, there is a far superior alternative called TrueCrypt. For Snipping Tool, it has been ported to Windows XP with the use of Alky for Applications, or if you have Office 2010, just use Screen Clipping feature. For Windows Live Movie Maker, Windows Movie Maker 2.1 is still as powerful.

Let's look at the reverse side. Are there any things Windows XP can do and Windows 7 cannot. Yes, there is one thing that I know of that Windows 7 can't do; one software sending sound to multiple audio devices - see http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itprogeneral/thread/5861360d-53c4-4998-bc78-6c208e79e895

Also, there are more things that Windows 7 can do, but are more difficult to do than in Windows XP or require 3rd party software. One such example is of File Types tab under Folder Options. The File types tab not only allowed you to change which file extension is opened by which application, but also allowed specifying parameters for executing that application to open the file and specifying another program for when the user right-clicks the file and selects another option other than Open. This is not possible in Windows 7, except for by manually editing the registry, which can be a nuisance if you have to do it for some file extensions.

AS for other things, there are some useful features that Windows XP supported natively but Windows 7 does not and requires extra software to do. An example is ability to add password to a ZIP file is removed in Windows 7 and requires third-party software like 7-Zip, WinRAR or WinZip to do so.
A good list of features can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Windows_Vista

When it comes to application compatibility, Windows XP beats Windows 7 clearly, running both old and new software without any issues. Windows XP is also the only widely used operating system today which can run with good performance on older, not so powerful hardware.

There is nothing Windows 7 can do and Windows XP can't - my reason for not upgrading to Windows 7. It's a matter of shame that Microsoft did nothing really "new" in Windows Vista and 7 except for some DirectX improvements and Windows Aero.

21 comments

Microsoft - the future

Saturday, May 12, 2012 10:02:32 AM

We all know that Windows XP was Microsoft's most successful operating system ever which remained the most popular operating system in use for a decade (2001 - 2011).
Windows XP remained so popular because Microsoft released Windows Vista with a huge delay; the operating system which was to be released in sometime around late 2004 - early 2005 arrived on retail in early 2007.
Windows Vista was criticized heavily for it's annoying User Account Control feature, incompatibility with software, for being slow and so on. The cause for the software incompatibility was that some software vendors had not updated their programs to work with Windows Vista and the big software vendors, had added Windows Vista support very recently at that time - so users were required to update to newer versions. These complaints were resolved to a good enough extent by 2008 with most software vendors offering updates/service packs for previous versions of their software - allowing them to run on Windows Vista.

But all this was a huge loss for Microsoft. Microsoft had to extend Windows XP Mainstream support because of it's popularity - allowing Windows XP users to have Internet Explorer 8, Visual Studio 2010 (Visual Studio 2010 alone means a lot), Microsoft Office 2010, Microsoft Security Essentials, Windows Live Essentials 2009 and other improvements like Windows Installer 4.5, exFAT file system support (via update), Silverlight 5 and some more of them.

In 2009, Microsoft released Windows 7. At the time of Windows 7's release, the conditions were better - processors were faster so performance was fine even on low-end systems; almost all software vendors had updated their software to run on Windows Vista (Windows 7 is compatible with most software that are compatible with Windows Vista). Also Microsoft removed Windows Mail, Windows Movie Maker and such programs making it less bloated. Windows 7 was considered to be well enough to upgrade from Windows XP. Windows 7 started to gain popularity among users.

Okay, the post's title is about future and I am talking about past. No, the discussion is really about future of Microsoft products.

Today, Windows XP is losing popularity to Windows 7.

Microsoft has dropped support for Windows XP from it's upcoming and current products - Visual Studio 11/2012 (including .NET Framework 4.5), SQL Server 2012, Internet Explorer 9 and above, Windows Live Essentials 2011 and above. More products to drop support very soon.

Out of the above, Microsoft has restricted some products like Visual Studio 11/2012 and Internet Explorer 10 to Windows 7 and above alone. What does this mean?

This is a clear indication that if users want the latest and greatest software from Microsoft, they will need to upgrade to newer versions of Windows every 5-6 years.

Visual Studio 2010 is the last version for Windows Vista. Internet Explorer 9 is the last version for Windows Vista. SQL Server 2012 is the last version for Windows Vista.

For Windows 7, things can vary, for example, if Windows 8 just experiences a terrible fail on the desktop. If that happens, it will be like Windows 7 saying will be the second XP for which the support will be extended and Windows 8 will be the second Vista whose customers will be angry. So I won't make any definite statement for what products are going to support Windows 7.

Now let's discuss about Windows itself in the future - rather than support for Windows in Microsoft products.

Windows 8 is going to be the next version of Windows, and the first version of Windows to bring a new application framework other than the desktop applications, Metro apps handled by WinRT (Windows Runtime). The geeks and developers will ofcourse know how to disable it, or find a use for it. This is not the big change - the big change is that Start menu is being removed. Again, geeks will know some software can bring back the Start menu.

However, the average user would probably be puzzled figuring out how to access the Start menu (and will be disappointed - there is no Start menu!). Not everybody is a computer geek. Unless, Microsoft adds some guide thoroughly introducing these changes in Windows 8, users are going to be puzzled up.

If Windows 8 RTM will be identical to the Windows 8 Consumer Preview (except for a few bugfixes, performance improvements and shipping with IE 10 RTM instead of IE 10 Consumer Preview), then it's just unknown what will happen to Windows 8.

12 comments

Avast! 7.0.1426 released

Thursday, March 8, 2012 1:46:26 PM

Yesterday, the release of Avast! version 7.0.1426 was announced by the Avast! team announced on the Avast! Forums.

The release does not include any features but only improvements and fixes. The release notes can be found at: http://www.avast.com/en-us/release-history

The highlight of the release is Compatibility with Windows 8 Consumer Preview.

Other than that it has fixes for issues with the Avast! plugins for Outlook, improvements for Avast! AutoSandbox and some general improvements.

No comments

Visual Studio 11 drops Windows XP and Vista Support; .NET Framework 4.5 drops Windows XP support.

Wednesday, February 29, 2012 5:59:36 PM

Windows 8 Beta on 29 February - this was the hot discussion on various tech blogs and forums.
Today, Windows 8 Beta was made available - along with Visual Studio 11 and .NET Framework 4.5 Betas too were made available as expected so that developers can try them out.

Unfortunately, Visual Studio 11 is only officially compatible with Windows 7 and above. That means applications made with Visual C# 11, Visual Basic 11, Visual F# 11 and Visual C++ 11 Windows Forms applications targeting new features in .NET Framework 4.5 (which is the default build configuration in Visual Studio; though it can be changed to an older .NET Framework version too) cannot run on Windows XP.

This also affects Microsoft Silverlight - the next major version of Silverlight will also drop official support for Windows XP.

Surprisingly, Visual Studio 11 can be installed on Windows 7 RTM as per the system requirements and it might be possible to install both of them on Windows Vista SP2 + Platform Updates also.

It might be possible to install and use Visual Studio 11 on Windows Vista SP2 with some modifications in registry or the MSI package.

.NET Framework 4.5 will be compatible with Windows Vista SP2, so while the Visual Studio IDE cannot be used; the C#, VB.NET, F# and managed C++ compilers can be used on Vista (the managed language compilers are included with .NET Framework).

[UPDATE: With the RC, the system requirements have changed and .NET Framework 4.5 will support Windows Vista SP2.]

2 comments

Microsoft kills Windows Vista Compatibility Center

Tuesday, February 14, 2012 12:16:04 PM

I was just trying to help a user running Windows Vista at Microsoft Answers having problem with one of his netbook's in-built webcam. As I usually would - I went to the Windows Vista Compatibility Center to look out for some information to see if there were any updated drivers for Windows Vista; as the netbook manufacturer's website did not contain webcam drivers for the exact netbook model.

This is not something odd; Windows Vista Compatibility Center was really great for finding out driver downloads - and especially I have encountered situations where even after searching the Web for hours there were no driver downloads available (especially common with some older Lexmark printers - not that older though, the Windows Vista compatible ones) ; while searching for the device in Windows Vista Compatibility Center would immediately give me the download link that I could then refer to the person asking for those device drivers at Microsoft Answers.

This time it was really shocking however.

Just went to http://www.microsoft.com/windows/compatibility/windows-vista/ and saw:



The page says that the Windows Vista Compatibility Center is no longer available and instead tries to convince users to upgrade to Windows 7.

It's a recent incident as the the last time I used Windows Vista Compatibility Center to help a user was on January 14, 2012. So this took place between mid-January to early February.

8 comments

Hardware acceleration on the Web - does it mean anything to the average user now?

Tuesday, February 7, 2012 12:47:49 PM

This article only focuses on the present status of hardware acceleration.

Hardware acceleration - many of us have read this term on various technical blogs and many of us know what it is. For those who don't know, hardware acceleration means that the hardware which is faster than software is used to perform the the computations. In the case web browsers, as per http://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/09/hardware-acceleration/ it is typically the Content and composting acceleration - content acceleration means faster rendering of the elements of the webpage while composting acceleration means faster putting up the rendered chunks of content. This is just the typical usage of hardware acceleration; some browsers may use hardware acceleration for more purposes too.

This altogether means that webpages render faster when the browser uses hardware acceleration. But is the comparison between rendering time for normal webpages when using the normal software rendering (ie. CPU doing all the work) and when using hardware acceleration of any major significance?

NO. While hardware acceleration might give you a 60 fps on the IE Testdrive Speed Demos or on the Mozilla hardware acceleration stress test - it does not significantly speed up the rendering of normal webpages and does not enhance the web experience to a considerable level.

OK, even when we forget the normal webpages, HTML5 ported games such as Cut the Rope work great in Internet Explorer 9 here - even when "Use software rendering instead of GPU rendering" checkbox was selected under Internet Options > Advanced tab.

Though hardware acceleration doesn't give much benefits, it has disadvantages.

If the CPU isn't processing the computations, then who is? Well, it's the graphics card or GPU. So the GPU now has got more work to do. BUT the issue is that GPU will require more power to do the computations while the CPU would take less power to do the same computations - though at a slower rate. That doesn't matter for the desktop computers - but the battery charge on notebooks and netbooks is reduces faster when hardware acceleration is used.

Thanks to QuHno for making a comment on my blog and sharing this information. Quoting him-

I don't understand the hype about HWA. I have benchmarked several of the browsers that already have HWA built in and the result was less than impressive when it came to rendering speed or reaction time of the browser UI. The only thing HWA did on my test system (Phenom II 6core, ATI 6990, 8GB, w7x64 - so no slow or incompatible system) was to consume more computing power which in turn consumes more energy (I measured up to 30% higher energy consumption of the HWA enabled browsers in comparison to their direct predecessors), which is bad for the environment and for the duration you can stay online with i.e. a laptop or a tablet in battery mode. Furthermore there is hardly any application in the web - may be apart from some geeky test pages - that can make a real use of HWA.

Also, very less people can use hardware acceleration.

According to StatCounter, more than 28% of the world is using web browser versions that do not support hardware acceleration.
According to Net Applications, more than 49% of the world is using web browsers versions that do not support hardware acceleration.

Out of the remaining users, very less have graphic cards that can support hardware acceleration (though Opera aims to provide Direct3D 9 acceleration providing acceleration on many systems - Opera has low popularity and might still have to blacklist many cards causing crashes with hardware acceleration).

Now out of these users, using both a modern browser as well as a newer computers with new graphic cards capable of hardware acceleration - there few who update the graphic drivers. Ofcourse, the main point of this article was in the average user's view - tech geeks surely update graphics drivers; if they can - if their graphics card can support acceleration.

So there is a very low percentage of users actually using hardware acceleration on the Web.

The conclusion is that hardware acceleration might prove useful in the future but for now, atleast on the Web - it does not have much to do.

2 comments

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