Windows Vista

Is ok.

But some of it is pretty rubbish.

Good: Robocopy is built-in

Bad: Files very rarely copy across to another drive….. I am not sure if the problems detailed here are the issue but there is something seriously unwell with File IO!

Annoying: I didn’t find out about Robocopy before I trashed the files I thought I couldn’t transfer.

Also, the Disk Defragmenter seems to have taken a step back in UI terms, though Wikipedia claims that it has been improved thus:

‘In Windows Vista, Windows Disk Defragmenter includes an option to automatically run at scheduled times and uses low CPU priority and the newly introduced low priority I/O algorithm so that disk defragmenter can continue to defrag using reduced resources (less CPU and disk read/write activity) when the computer is in use. The user interface has been simplified, with the color graph and progress indicator being removed entirely. It is also not possible to select which drives to defragment. Chunks of data over 64MB in size are not defragmented; Microsoft has stated that this is because there is no discernible performance benefit in doing so. ^[1] The result, however, is that Disk Defragmenter does not require a certain amount of free space in order to successfully defrag a volume, unlike previous versions which required at least 15% free space on the volume. The command line utlity, defrag.exe in Windows Vista, offers more control over the defragmentation process.’

I have to say that – out of the box – Mac OSX is a far more satisfying experience. The killer for the Mac, however, is the lack of Office 2007 which is really quite exceptional.

Tags: Mac+OSX, OSX, Vista, Windows+Vista, Microsoft, IO, Robocopy, Disk+Defragmenter

Comments

[Stanley]

I dont like the Vista defragmentation tool all that much. I prefer Diskeeper. It defrags faster, and has an excellent automatic defragmentation mode, but most important of all, it shows me the progress of the defrag. Despite what Microsoft says, I prefer to atleast check on whats happening with a process and have some control over starting, stopping and scheduling it. Diskeeper offers these options quite comprehensively.