Backing up files in Windows has never been easier

I’ve been using Windows Vista daily since the early beta days and I must admit I feel a bit ashamed of the fact that I just recently started using the excellent backup features of Windows Vista. For the last week I have been using the automatic backup feature that is a part of Windows Vista Business, Enterprise and Ultimate editions and I must say it is a really handy feature. A few clicks and I have everything backed up to another computer on the network automatically every day. What’s even handier is that only the first backup to run contain the whole contents of the files, all subsequent backups are only incremental, saving storage space and time it takes to perform the backups.

Windows Vista SP1 is really an improvement!

A few nights ago I spent a lot of time on doing some performance tests about Windows Vista Service Pack 1 for publishing in a magazine. I compared several areas such as copying files from hard drive to another hard drive as well as over both wired and wireless networks. I also ran benchmarking tests with 3DMark06 and PCMark05 as well as the FPS-test in Half-Life 2 Lost Coast and finally I compared extracting files from a zip file. I can just say that Vista with SP1 out-performed Vista RTM in all tests, in some tests by far! This is very promising for the final release but on the other hand it is also a sign of the fact that maybe Vista wasn’t so ready to be released in November last year after all?

Anyway, in the test of copying files over the wired network the time it took with Vista RTM was 4 minutes and 4 seconds and with Vista SP1 it was 3 minutes and 9 seconds, quite an improvement. Extracting the files with Vista RTM took 2 minutes and 12 seconds while it just took 1 minute and 25 seconds with Vista SP1. Maybe I ought to run the same tests on my XP installation on the same machine, but do we dare to see that result?

Long file names still a problem in Vista

Apparently there is a bug in how Vista handles long file names, and it can easily be reproduced. When I download files from Microsoft Update Catalog, the file names of the files that are downloaded are very long, but still not that long. The files are saved to the NTFS formatted hard drive and I can use Windows built-in function to compress the files to a zip file. So far so good, the problems arise when I want to extract the compressed files, where Vista then says that the filename is too long for the file system to handle. This makes me wonder how I could first save the file to my computer, then zip it, but now I am not allowed to extract it? Strange to say the least!

The Vista DVD considered to be a security threat

The Windows Vista DVD is to be considered a security threat! By starting a computer from the Vista installation DVD and choose to Repair the computer instead of installing Vista, the user gets to a number of choices amongst them a command line (cmd.exe). By starting the command line tool you will have full access to all files on the computer and might easily copy them to a removable device of your choice. This is a big difference from Windows XP where you at least had to login to the Recovery Console with an administrator account, in Vista you just get full access to all the user and system files on the computer, no questions asked.

I however live by the principle that if anyone has physical access to a computer it might be compromised anyway, but still it is good to know about this potential security hole. Laptop computers might contain sensitive data and can easily be accessed by anyone who gain access to it if it should be stolen for example. The only way to my knowledge to protect from this “attack” is to use BitLocker (or possibly other encryption software). By using BitLocker the system partition is encrypted and you cannot access it using the method I describe above. If you install Service Pack 1 for Vista you will also be able to encrypt all partitions and disks on your computer, protecting your files and data further, not just the system partition. The BitLocker encryption function is only available with Windows Vista Enterprise and Ultimate Edition

Dell’s audio beta drivers necessary for deploying Vista

Anyone that has tried to integrate the SigmaTel audio driver that Dell provides for Vista in an install.wim has learned that the sound does not work after deploying that image. The effect is that the device seems to be installed correctly in the Device Manager but looking at the speaker’s icon in the notification area or from the Sound control panel just say ”No audio output device is installed”. This is a known bug in the SigmaTel drivers for all Latitude computers utilizing the SigmaTel audio chip, meaning all laptops from Latitude D610, D620 to D630 and all D4xx and D8xx versions as well are affected by the problem . Dell has given me a beta driver dated late July this year but they seem unwilling to give this to the public or to release a new stable driver. I suggest that anyone that experience this problem contact Dell and demand they release a new audio driver for SigmaTel audio cards as soon as possible. The driver  package number is R164710.

Service Pack 1 beats the record in restarts!

Service Pack 1 beats all previous records of the number of restarts a Service Pack requires. Normally the number of restarts to install a Service Pack is limited to just one (1) restart but with Vista this number is up to almost ten (10) restarts. First, you have to install a number of hot fixes one at a time just to be able to install SP1 as it requires certain fixes to make sure that nothing breaks during SP1. Installing SP1 itself also requires some five restarts or something like that before the installation is finished. As the SP1 is still in beta one could always hope that this number of required restarts would decrease as we reach the final version of SP1 but Microsoft has declined this. But prior to releasing SP1 Microsoft will start shipping the pre-requisite updates via Automatic Updates so that they are installed well in time before SP1 start shipping.

Vista Media Center wakes my computer automatically

After discovering that my computer was always started when I got home from work I’ve been doing some troubleshooting on my Vista Media Center computer only to find out that Vista automatically wakes my computer automatically at 2PM every day, just to download the electronic program guide. I have accidently blamed my beloved second half for starting the computer and watching TV in the morning after I leave and before she goes to work, but the truth is that it is Microsoft that is indirectly starting my computer automatically.

So every single day the computer starts automatically, unless I disable the Media Center task from Task Scheduler. But if I disable it, I cannot schedule recordings of TV show and this is really frustrating and I do certainly not see the point in why the computer starts automatically just to download the EPG that could easily be updated once I start the computer later at night? And I cannot say that this is a good feature choice of Microsoft from an environmental point of view, nor the economic perspective of the user that has to pay the electricity bill.

Should it really take 134 years to copy a file?

During the day I’ve been working on creating an integrated installation CD for Vista x64 with all the drivers and patches. Copying the file install.wim from the Vista DVD to the hard drive would take around 49000 days to complete, which is equal to 134 years (!), according to Vista. Probably this is a bug in the function that calculates the remaining time, and probably this is fixed in Vista Service Pack 1, or perhaps even in the couple of performance and reliability fixes that has been launched recently. Although the below screenshot is in Swedish I can tell you that “dagar” = “days” in English.

Copy files Windows Vista