Vista Slow To Copy, Delete Files

Bruce Schneier has said that trying to make digital files uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet. With Vista, Microsoft seems to have done a pretty good job of making premium content files not copyable. Now a few readers have tipped us to a new wrinkle: Vista also makes it very, very slow to copy, rename, or delete ordinary files. Here is a Microsoft TechNet thread on the problem. The Reg reports that Microsoft has a hotfix for what sounds like a subset of the more general problem complained about on TechNet; but they will only give it to customers who ask nicely. And a hotfix is fussier to install than a proper patch.

Why only a Hotfix and no patch?

[jkrise]

For very very basic functionality?

What is Vista doing? Factoring large primes in 640KB RAM?

Whah?

[suv4x4]

What the heck is this supposed to mean:

--snip--
"I've seen this bug in action, and trust me, it's as if you're copying over a 64k link using only 256mb of RAM," one Reg reader complained.
--snip--

Is the guy trying to be sarcastic or something?

Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you Vista fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of a Vista PC (an Intel Core 2 Duo w/4 gigs of RAM) for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to copy a 17 Meg file from one folder on the hard drive to another folder. 20 minutes. At home, on my ancient Mac running OS 9, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this Vista PC, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that.

In addition, during this file transfer, Firefox will not work. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even Notepad is straining to keep up as I type this.

I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working on various Vista PCs, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a Vista PC that has run faster than its Mac OSX counterpart, despite the Vista PC's same chip architecture. My 286/12 with 2 megs of ram runs faster than this 2.4ghz mhz machine at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that Vista is a superior operating system.

Vista lovers, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use Vista over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems.

Re:Interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

"One of the complaints about the Linux community is how people tell noobs to RTFM or use Google."

I haven't had this problem with the Ubuntu crowd.

It is feature I invented

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Hey, They stole my stuff. My code takes very long time to do trivial tasks. That is my idea. They stole my idea!

Re:Vista File I/O Like Swimming in Molasses

[jkrise]

I can't get it to un-sleep properly either. I'll drop the lid and open it later and hit a few keys. 2 minutes later the screen is still black so I'll try to shut it down or start it up and I wind up holding the start button for 10 seconds to get anything to work...

In Vista, there are so many options to choose while putting your laptop to sleep. Next time DO NOT CHOOSE the 'Coma' option.

Re:Vista File I/O Like Swimming in Molasses

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone remind me why I need to "upgrade" to an OS where everything is slower and comes with a restriction for pretty much anything. Not to mention it's not really more secure than a fully patched XP anyway. AND it requires me to upgrade my RAM to do less. How's that making any sense?

Shiny!!

I can attest to this...

[GFree]

Vista is definitely slower at copying, deleting, pretty-much all file processing commands. I can say this from my own experiences; God help you if you have thousands of files to process.

But you should check out the new animations they made for the copy/move/delete functions, whoa! They've got, like, flipping rectangles and shit, and the animations are so shiny!

At this rate, I bet the next service pack will bring a new 3D-accelerated BSOD too, complete with shiny and flippy messages to tell you your system is screwed, but man... check out that neat animation, that'll take the sting off at least!

(Oh, and to finally wrap up the karma bonus once and for all, Vista was the reason I finally converted to Linux. Huzaa!)

Re:Confirmed!

[drooling-dog]

Moving/copying a lot of large files is very suspicious behavior. The compliant and well-behaved user who leaves things where they are supposed to be should only rarely have to do that. Perhaps Microsoft is slowing down the process to give you time to reflect on the error of your ways (or maybe to think about switching to a different OS)...

Re:Obligatory

[morgan_greywolf]

One of these days somebody will make a statue of Natalie Portman and nobody will even care

I did. And she was naked. And petrifiedq, of course. I even put hot grits on it! Nobody cared. Very sad, indeed.

Re:Interesting...

[david_g17]

...Why is Slashdot so slow to highlight glaring defects in Vista?

Actually, slashdot reported on this months ago; however, since the slashdot server is running on vista, it took this long to get inserted into the database.

Re:Confirmed!

[dosquatch]

Attempting to delete large numbers of files under XP sets one up to wait quite a while for the OS while it is "preparing to delete", and Vista makes this slower? WTF is "preparing to delete", anyway? Does it really take that long to generate an "Are you sure?" dialog?

Re:WTF Register quote?

[vrt3]

I realize "The Register" is the "National Enquirer" of IT, but what the heck does this quote in TFA mean: "it's as if you're copying over a 64k link using only 256mb of RAM"

Note the small m and b: it's not 256 megabyte, but 256 millibit. That's not a whole lot of memory.

Re:Confirmed!

[Anonymous Coward]

What kind of sloped-forehead drooling retard can't spell ARTICLE?

I mean seriously, "artical"? I don't want to be criticle of your rediculous spelling, but its definately got to stop. It's the Dilbert Principal.

Re:Obligatory

[drsmithy]

half the new kids won't even get it

Given this troll (in its original form) dates from mid-90s usenet, a fairly large chunk of the "old kids" probably don't get it either...

Re:Confirmed!

[sconeu]

WTF is "preparing to delete", anyway?

Dark Helmet: Why are we always "preparing"? Just go.
Colonel Sandurz: Just go.

Re:Confirmed!

[MrNiceguy_KS]

OK, I've figured out that D: is your porn partition, but I'm a bit confused by the .txt files.

Re:Confirmed!

[mikiN]

Apparently the calculation is doing more than just figuring out file transfer size.

Like maybe MD5ing your files and running them by several (online and offline) forensic file signature databases trying to find out whether they're not legit?

Re:Confirmed!

[Red Flayer]

but Windows does everything on the fly...Or on the crawl, as it were.

I used to just pull its wings off (hence the crawling), please don't tell me MS has come up with something even more insidious -- like then throwing tiny little chairs at it.

Re:Confirmed!

[dreamlax]

That kind of made it look like I was copying pr0n . . .

Obligatory old reference

[BeerCat]

Finally, a chance to turn the tables...


I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you Vista fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of a Dell (a Core 2 Duo w/1 Gig of RAM) for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to copy a 17 Meg file from one folder on the hard drive to another folder. 20 minutes. At home, on my G3 iMac, running OS9.2, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this Mac, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that.


(the original rant) [kottke.org]

Re:Confirmed!

[cheater512]

Dont worry. Its been on and off getting video drivers working with Vista too. ;)