My Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Review

Published on March 28, 2008 By Life is a Game In Vista Experience

My Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Review Since Vista Service Pack 1 was released into public there have been many reviews and opinions written about it on numerous websites. I read many reviews and they were helpful but none of them gave specific numbers and examples of how Vista SP1 affects the performance so I decided to do some tests of my own and post them on WinCustomize.

What I tested
Since Microsoft claimed that Vista SP1 improves overall and network performance I tested how fast it boots up and logs in, how fast commonly used application such as Adobe Photoshop CS 3, Microsoft Word 2007 and Internet Explorer 7 start up. As for network performance I copied a large file from a mapped network drive to my hard drive.

How I tested
I ran all the tests in Windows Vista Home Premium on my laptop Acer Aspire 5920G with Intel T7300 running at 2.0 GHz, 2.0 GB 667 MHz memory, 256 MB nVidia GeForce 8600GT, 1 GB Intel Turbo Memory and a 160 GB 5400 rpm.

As it is very difficult to have ideal and fair conditions for testing due to Vista's nature of running many services and applications in the background I used the following method to test it in most ideal conditions.

First I restarted and then I measured the boot up time, after entering my password log in time. When Vista finished loading all the services and applications I ran Adobe Photoshop CS3 and then closed it. After that I opened and closed Microsoft Word 2007 followed by opening and closing Internet Explorer 7. I wrapped up this test cycle by copying a 500 MB file from a mapped network drive onto my hard drive via 100 mbps LAN. After that I restarted my laptop and repeated this cycle for 2 more times. So I ended with 3 different results for each test. After completing first 3 cycles I installed Vista SP1 which took about 35 minutes. After the update completed I repeated the same tests.

I could take average times and give you the average figure but I think it's best to give you all 3 different results for each test as I sometimes Vista SP1 was faster, sometimes slower and sometimes even with Vista without SP1 and if you wish you can calculate the averages by yourself.

Boot Up Test
I measured the time from when the green loading bar appeared until the full logon screen appeared.

Results in seconds (shorter is better)

Boot Up	Vista w/o SP1	Vista SP1
Cycle 1	28	27
Cycle 2	28	32
Cycle 3	26	30

Login Test
I measured the time from when I entered my password and all the tray icons, wallpaper and ObjectDock appeared. So the actual login times are probably slightly longer but because I can't see exactly how long the applications and services running in the background needed to startup I just measured what I could see.

Results in seconds (shorter is better)

Login	Vista w/o SP1	Vista SP1
Cycle 1	10	10
Cycle 2	10	10
Cycle 3	10	18

Adobe Photoshop CS Test
I measured the time from when I clicked the Adobe Photoshop CS3 icon on my ObjectDock until when I could see all the palettes, tools and menus showed up.

Results in seconds (shorter is better)

Photoshop CS3	Vista w/o SP1	Vista SP1
Cycle 1	9	12
Cycle 2	14	17
Cycle 3	14	14

Microsoft Word 2007 Test
I measured the time from when I clicked the Microsoft Word 2007 icon on my ObjectDock until when a blank page opened and the cursor appeared which means I could start typing text.

Results in seconds (shorter is better)

Word 2007	Vista w/o SP1	Vista SP1
Cycle 1	11	8
Cycle 2	13	18
Cycle 3	12	11

Internet Explorer 7 Test
I measured the time from when I clicked the Internet Explore 7 icon on my ObjectDock until when my homepage Google.com opened and cursor appeared in the search field which means I could start a new search.

Results in seconds (shorter is better)

IE 7	Vista w/o SP1	Vista SP1
Cycle 1	5	5
Cycle 2	3	6
Cycle 3	5	4

Network Performance
For my final test I measured the time needed to copy a large 500 MB file from a mapped network drive onto my hard drive into folder Downloads via 100 mbps LAN. I measured from the moment when the dialog for copying the file appeared and disappeared.

Results in seconds (shorter is better)

Network	Vista w/o SP1	Vista SP1
Cycle 1	58	42
Cycle 2	56	43
Cycle 3	58	43

Non-performance Improvements
I am sure there are quite a few improvements that are not directly connected to performance but I managed to notice only one thing. In the Remote Desktop Connection dialog when you choose a computer to connect to it now also shows username with which you previously connected and if you have saved login details it will give you options to edit or delete them. A small but for me very useful update as I use this tool a lot at my work.

Verdict
As you can see from the results Vista SP1 is in all the test about the same fast as Vista w/o SP1 except in Network performance there is a huge improvement of about 30%. Now that doesn't mean that the overall performance and feel is improved which you can't see from my test. But I noticed as all other reviews I've read over the past week that the system is generally more responsive and it runs smoother. Folders open instantly whether they are on a local or network drive while prior to installing Vista SP1 they opened with a minor delay. Even my girlfriend that is not exactly an expert in computers noticed performance improvement when browsing her laptop. So I am quite happy with the improvements Vista SP1 made to my laptop. Sure there are still things in Vista to fix and improve but as everything else in life it just needs more time.

Comments

SlimSpaceman

on Apr 25, 2008

Interesting read. I have been wandering what the differences were, since I didn't directly notice any... But now I know. Thanx!

Life is a Game

on Jun 13, 2008

You are welcome

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