Vista Could Sap Notebook PC Battery Life
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Flashy new OS features could drain laptop batteries faster than XP, hardware vendors and analysts say.
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Preview Smaller than a laptop, bigger than a PDA - the perfect PC size?
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A cache of flash in a new Samsung notebook hard-drive series will halve boot times and slash power usage, giving battery life a nice bump, the company says. In Gadget Lab. In Gadget Lab.
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(InfoWorld) - PCs running Microsoft'sÂ new Windows Vista operating systemÂ got a cool response from consumers in Japan during their first month on sale, according to data published Tuesday. Sales of desktop and laptop computers from brand-name makers in February were 1.2 percent higher than the same month in 2006, said BCN. The company came up with its figure after analyzing point-of-sales system data from about 560 specialist PC and electronics shops that are part of 12 retail chains. The entire market was up 6 percent thanks to better demand for white-box PCs made by computer stores and for motherboards. The jump in the brand-market was smaller than expected by market watchers, who thought the launch of the long-awaited operating system on Jan. 30 would give the PC market more of a kick. Better sales had been expected in part because consumers had shown a lack of interest in new PCs in the months prior to Vista's launch. In October, sales were down 21 percent compared to the previous year. In November, they were 22 percent lower, in December 19 percent down and in January 14 percent below the same month in 2006. The little strength there was in the brand-name market came from increased sales of laptops, sales of which were up 9.3 percent on a unit basis for the month, said BCN. The desktop sector was down 13.8 percent on the year. Despite the apparently lackluster response from Japanese consumers, Microsoft and two major PC makers have in the last 24 hours given the Vista launch votes of confidence. "We're actually pretty happy with how the launch has gone so far," said Darren Huston, president and CEO of Microsoft's Japan unit, at a news conference on Monday. The same day Walt Mayo, corporate director of Dell Japan's home and business sales division, said in an interview that the Vista launch has been "good overall." On Tuesday Richard Walker, head of Hewlett Packard's consumer PC division, said sales of Vista PCs were "strong" in the global market. He didn't have any data specific to the Japanese market. "We're definitely ahead of our plan as far as Vista is concerned," he said. Among Vista sales demand for the premium versions has been greater than anticipated, said Microsoft's Huston. "That was actually a good, positive surprise for us," he said.
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Taiwanese&#160;laptop maker Micro-Star International (MSI)&#160;plans to add Turbo-battery mode to a laptop PC aimed at computer gamers later this year in a bid to increase battery life and put out a more environmentally friendly product.The laptop will be the next generation of its G-series, which includes the GX600, a laptop with a button users can press to overclock the microprocessor. The Turbo-overclocking button on the current GX600 will gain a new use on the next generation laptop, Turbo-battery mode.Turbo-battery mode will add 20 percent more life to the battery, said Sam Chem, director of notebook computer sales at MSI, in an interview. The battery on the GX600 lasts for around two hours, so the addition of Turbo-battery mode would increase its power to two and a half hours.Turbo-battery mode only kicks in when a user hits the overclocking button while the battery is being used. When the laptop is plugged in, Turbo-battery mode will not come on.MSI&#39;s GX600 was one of the first laptop PCs to include a button for overclocking. Mobile devices in general aren&#39;t ideal for overclocking because of heat issues. When the microprocessor is prompted to work harder, it gives off far more heat. Desktop PCs are bigger and have more open space, as well as cooling devices such as bigger fans, making them more suitable for overclocking. But mobile devices encase the microprocessor and other hot-running chips and components into a much smaller area. Too much heat from one component can damage other parts.But MSI included new thermal technology in the GX600 to ensure its laptops wouldn&#39;t have a meltdown, Chem said. The result is that computer gamers using the laptop can get more performance for their money out of the microprocessor, which is one of the most expensive parts in a laptop. Overclocking can make a 2GHz microprocessor perform like a 2.4GHz or 2.5GHz microprocessor, he said.The GX600 weighs 2.7 kilograms and carries an Intel microprocessor, Nvidia 8600 graphics, 512MB GDRAM (graphics dynamic RAM), has a 15.4-inch screen and includes a number keypad along with the QWERTY keypad.MSI has been making laptops for three years. The company is also known for its motherboards and graphics cards.
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As expected, the PC industry is ready with new Vista computers after years of delays. But the immediate impact on the PC market could be muted.
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A few more details emerge about the three energy-efficient Turion-powered notebooks.
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The wait is nearly over for the first service pack for Windows Vista, according to sources close to Microsoft.Microsoft has said the highly anticipated service pack would be out in the first quarter of this year, but some say it could be available in the next few weeks, more than a month before the quarter ends on March 31.A Taiwanese news outlet Wednesday reported in a story that Vista SP1 would be released Feb. 15, but &quot;that date is as good as any other,&quot; said Michael Cherry, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft. &quot;For all we know, they could make it available tomorrow.&quot;Through its public relations agency Wednesday, Microsoft declined to comment on the Feb. 15 date beyond reiterating the software would be available in the first quarter. Still, several sources who work closely with Microsoft said a mid-February release is not unlikely, and they expect the software to be out before the end of March.Chris Swenson, director of software industry analysis for the NPD Group, said that analysts have heard Feb. 15 as the target for SP1, but it&#39;s not something Microsoft would confirm publicly to give itself time to make adjustments in case of negative feedback on the current release of the software.Microsoft released Vista SP1 Release Candidate (RC) in December but then refreshed that software in a public release earlier this month.Several Microsoft partners said they could not confirm Feb. 15 as the date for SP1&#39;s release, but said they expect the software soon for a number of reasons.One of those is the strength of the release candidate, said Brian Randell, a senior consultant with MCW Technologies in Los Angeles. He has been using the SP1 RC, and it&#39;s stable and running well so, &quot;I can&#39;t see why [the final release] wouldn&#39;t be out soon.&quot;Microsoft&#39;s hesitancy to give a firm date for SP1 means the company is confident it can get the final release out on time, said Andrew Brust, chief, new technology for consulting firm twentysix New York. However, he agreed with NPD&#39;s Swenson that the company wants to give itself room for last-minute changes. &quot;They are not ready to promise anything beyond Q1,&quot; he said. Brust is a regional director of Microsoft partners and works closely with the company.Many believe the SP1 milestone is the one that will bring about a new wave of adoption for Vista, especially among business customers that have been awaiting the service pack&#39;s release before updating employee desktops. The combination of SP1 and Windows Server 2008, due out on Feb. 27, is expected to bode well for Vista adoption in the enterprise and medium-sized business sectors.One date Cherry said Microsoft probably won&#39;t release SP1 is the next Patch Tuesday, Feb. 12. Patch Tuesday refers to the second Tuesday of every month when Microsoft sends out software patches and updates via its automatic updating services.&quot;Hopefully, they would keep the release of monthly patches separate from the release of a service pack,&quot; Cherry said.
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Vista running like a snail? You can improve performance considerably by bumping the memory to 2GB. Newegg has a 2GB module for just $26.99 after a $10 mail-in rebate.
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A Microsoft-sponsored study says that Windows Vista will generate some $70 billion in revenue and create up to 100,000 jobs in the first year of its release. The report also forecasts rapid and widespread adoption of the OS.
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A Croatian college student has created a utility that installs a seriously stripped-down Windows Vista, saying the heft of Microsoft's biggest desktop operating system is just too big to believe."Who can justify a 15GB operating system?" asked Dino Nuhagic, a fifth-year student from Split, a Croatian city on the Adriatic. Not Nuhagic, or the uncounted users who have turned to his creation, vLite.The free program lets users pick and choose which Vista components, hot fixes, drivers, and even language packs are installed, then builds a disk image that can be burned to a DVD for unattended installation of the operating system."Why did I do it? Well, it's performance and work environment," Nuhagic said when asked why he came up with vLite. "Performance, that's easy to explain. The less things running, the more responsive the OS. But the environment part is where it gets down to personal preference."Those preferences include options for leaving out virtually every component of Windows Vista, from the minor -- such as the bundled screensavers -- to the major, such as the firewall or Universal Plug and Play.Some vLite users, in fact, have made it a contest of sorts to come up with the puniest-possible installation package for the operating system. While Microsoft recommends that users set aside 15GB of hard-disk space to install its pride and joy, Nuhagic's fans boast of squeezing it into an image file as small as 515MB that takes up just 1.4GB on the hard drive.One user reported condensing Windows Vista Home Basic into a 526MB .iso file and installing it in a virtual machine that used just 1.3GB of drive space. "It worked well inside the virtual machine and since I have 1GB of RAM on the host I guess the little Vista would work well," said amocanu.Nuhagic didn't come right out and say it, but he hinted that he -- like more critical users and pundits -- thought Vista was bloated and could use some reducing. "To be frank, I don't need 90 percent of Windows. But that 10 percent, which guarantees that you can run [the] majority of games out there, is what is worth isolating."Crafting vLite wasn't easy, he said. But the time Nuhagic spent on its predecessor, nLite, which similarly squeezes Windows 2000 and Windows XP, paid off in spades. "Since I had four years of experience with tampering [with] older Windows, it was a lot easier than nLite," Nuhagic said of the development of vLite. "Also, it was easier than in XP because Vista does not have the old-style installation. It doesn't install components one by one, but simply extracts the image. Where XP would fail during install because a certain file was missing, that issue is not present in Vista."Even though vLite features a simple graphical interface that lets users remove a component with a click, Nuhagic warned that the utility isn't designed for the average user: "Because of certain possible compatibility issues with the programs out there [that] expect full Windows, I'd recommend [it] only to users [that] want exactly that kind of tool. In other words, I would not recommend it to someone who installs their OS once every few years. But if you do it every few months, then it's a must."Nuhagic couldn't say how many people use vLite, or even the number of times it's been downloaded from his Web site. "I don't have counters installed because the FTP mirrors were donated, and I would have to upgrade my hosting for some extra script processing," he said of his shoestring operation. It shouldn't be a surprise, however, that nLite, the Windows XP miniaturizer, remains four to five times more popular than vLite, based on the number of visitors to the different nLite and vLite Web sites.Microsoft knows of the tools -- Nuhagic said the company has contacted him in the past about possible employment -- but it's done little to quash the condensing. When asked whether it had any thoughts on vLite, a company spokeswoman e-mailed a lukewarm warning."Microsoft does not recommend using any tool to strip out applications from Windows Vista prior to installing it on your system, as it may affect your ability to download future Windows Updates and Service Packs, and may cause your system to become unstable," she said.But vLite's users praised Nuhagic's efforts with blunter language. "Thanks for spending your time making our OS less bloated," said one.VLite 1.1 can be downloaded from Nuhagic's Web site.
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InfoWorld - On Wednesday, Microsoft released details of a study it commissioned that found that total cost of ownership for Windows Vista on mobile PCs is $605 less annually than Windows XP.
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The PC industry is about to get the first update to the Energy Star specifications in more than a decade as home gadgets continue to suck down the juice.Photos: PC stands for power consumption
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Tycho:  I don't know whose fault it is exactly, mine or theirs, but I won't be installing Vista anytime soon.  I would like some crazy shit to happen when I minimize something don't get me wrong.  I want my windows to go Waja-wajow(!) is possible.  But if there's a great reason to "trade horses midstream" or whatever the going metaphor is I haven't discovered it.
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By JAMES COATES, CHICAGO TRIBUNE  Q. I need to know if it's possible to upgrade my Dell Dimension computer to use the new Windows Vista operating system. It has a Pentium III microprocessor. The memory is 384 megabytes, SDRAM.
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Notebook a +9%, hardware +1,2%, in calo computer desktop
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(InfoWorld) - Although some widely used applications from top software vendors haven't been certified for use with Windows Vista, they may nonetheless work with the MicrosoftÂ OS. Major applications from Symantec, Adobe Systems, Apple, and IBM aren't included on an official Microsoft list of applications that qualify for a "Certified for Windows Vista" or "Works with Windows Vista" logo. However, chances are they could currently be involved in the testing process to achieve those logos, Microsoft and its partners said. That's the case with Symantec's security products, according to a company spokesman. Though Symantec's software is not listed on the site as having achieved either of those designations, company spokesman Mike Bradshaw said Wednesday that Symantec's Norton 360, Norton Antivirus, and Norton Internet Security are already compatible with Vista. "It's just a matter of paperwork," he said. The products are going through a lengthy certification process and should be eligible for the label soon. Adobe's Acrobat Reader 8.0 also runs on Vista even though it is not listed on Microsoft's site as one of those applications certified for or working with Vista, according to Adobe spokesman Matt Rozen. Tom Caputo, group product manager on the Windows Vista partner team, said the list of vendors that have applications that have achieved either the "Certified for" or "Works with" Windows Vista designations is by no means the entire list of applications that actually work on Vista now. There are about 800 applications on that list, but "tens of thousands of applications" already can run on Vista, he said. "The goal of the logo programs is to give ISVs the opportunity to indicate to their compatibility status to the market using those two logos," he said. That said, there are still applications from top vendors that aren't available in a full compatible version for Vista, such as iTunes from Apple and Lotus Notes from IBM, among others. And according to some, this lack of compatibility is making it difficult to use Vista as their full-time OS. Microsoft blogger Chris Pirillo, founder of the Lockergnome technology portal, described the lack of compatibility with applications and hardware devices in a humorous blog entry "Windows Vista: Why I'm Breaking Up With You." The entry describes how Pirillo will "upgrade" from Vista to XP because he couldn't get some devices and applications he needs on a daily basis -- such as the software for his HP Laserjet 3052 scanner or his IPFax software-- to work on the new Windows client OS. "I gave Vista a real chance," he wrote. "I just can't use it as my primary OS anymore.... I'm still more than willing to help Microsoft improve Windows and get the message out to users, but I simply can't sacrifice my own time and productivity without benefits in clear sight. I'm begging Microsoft and all of my hardware and software vendors to make Windows better for me."