JK opinion- Vista will never run well on mobile devices

OK, never say never so maybe I'll temper that remark by saying that Vista will not run well on mobile devices in the foreseeable future.  Feel better?  I don't, because we were led to believe that Vista was going to optimize our mobile computing experience.  It's open season on Vista in the media but my focus is on the mobile device space and it's failing miserably here.  I have run Vista on more mobile devices than most folks will ever use and it does something every single day that frustrates the hell out of me.  Quite frankly the only reason I still run Vista on my mobile devices is because the new Tablet bits are better than the older XP version, but even that is not enough on some days.  And those days are occurring with greater frequency.

So how is Vista failing my mobile experience?  First and foremost in the area of performance.  I have not seen adequate performance running Vista on anything less than a Core 2 Duo processor.  Those are only available in the larger Tablets so the UMPCs and smaller Tablets are out of luck.  Vista also needs 2 GB of memory to run well and the smaller mobile devices usually are only offered with 1 GB, which isn't enough.  The dreaded disk thrashing that occurs with too little memory leaves the device unresponsive to the user until it's done doing whatever it's doing, and that takes way too long on the slower processors.  I can't even imagine trying to run Vista on the new Intel mobile processors, the A1xx series.  Their performance clocks in at the old Celeron speeds, and Vista chokes all the time on slower processors.  It's going to take the ability for OEMs to put Core 2 Duo processors in these small devices to get acceptable performance, and that won't happen any time soon due to heat problems.  I do not have a good outlook on resolving the Vista performance problem on mobile devices in the near future.

Run Vista on mobile devices like notebooks and Tablet PCs with the Core 2 Duo processors and performance is decent enough overall, but Vista still has brain farts often enough that the device sits there and frustrates the user.  Who knows what it's doing when it freezes up temporarily but bottom line who cares?  It shouldn't do that.  If you use Sleep and Resume you quickly fall victim to the dreaded Vista la-la land where the device fails to resume properly.  Sometimes the device comes back fine but without a screen which is oh so useful.  Other times it comes back but hangs the entire device up in just a few seconds.  Both of these situations require a hard boot by turning off the power, which not even the OS likes, and then sitting through a boot time even longer than normal.  If you call several minutes to boot normal.  These failures are real killers on slower machines as the boot process goes on seemingly forever.  Even "proper" resumes on most mobile devices can sometimes take 45 seconds or longer which is a real productivity killer for the road warrior needing to do something quickly.  The whole experience can be summed up in one word- frustrating.  Scratch your eyes out frustrating.  That is so sad it's incredible to me that as mobile devices mature the OS can't keep up and in fact makes the user experience worse. 

One of the most beneficial things you can do to improve the mobile device experience is use it with a dock.  Don't even get me started with how badly Vista handles docking and undocking of these mobile devices, especially if you hang an external monitor off the dock. Screen flickering and flashing, time wasting confusion as Vista tries to figure out what to do.  The icing on this flickering cake is when Vista fires up the UAC in the middle and asks for permission to continue.  This fires off additional rounds of screen flickering and disk thrashing enough to give the user concern that the system is going to hang up.  Just for grins I've refused the permission request to see what would happen and you get the same flickering and disk thrashing just to get back where you started.  How silly is that?   Rotating the screen  on Tablet PCs, something they are designed to allow, can randomly fire off the same disk thrashing system tie-up.  So much so that I have to consider whether the risk of a slowdown is worth rotating the screen.  That is utterly ridiculous to me.

Speaking of disk thrashing Vista fires off a round at the most inopportune times.  The whole system is unresponsive while the OS does who knows what, the cursor won't move, the user taps stuff to see if the system will respond, which fires off unexpected actions from the cached mouse clicks.  This happens on every single mobile device I have used, even the very fast ones.  It's really embarrassing when you are showing off a new device, emphasis on new, and have to answer the question "what's it doing now?".  Especially when the answer is "I don't know".  This not only completely stops the mobile user from doing needed work but I am convinced it drains the battery unnecessarily, the ultimate taboo while mobile.

I have probably used more mobile devices than just about anyone alive. I have used them running Windows XP and all flavors of Vista.  Devices with Pentium M processors or Core Solo will run XP just fine, even with only 512 MB of memory.  Sure, performance is much improved with at least 1 GB of RAM, but XP will still run acceptably with only 512 MB. That same processor with 1 GB of memory will choke running Vista often enough to ruin the user experience.  You'd better have 2 GB of RAM to even consider running Vista with a poky Pentium M processor, and even then you'll experience the odd slow-down.  The scary thing is that these Core Solo processors are faster than the processors used in most UMPCs being currently released, and Vista mangles the performance enough to give serious concern. 

The whole Vista mobile experience is very unstable and that is unsettling to anyone who needs to get their work done, and get it done now.  I don't care how pretty the OS is or how much new sophisticated stuff is going on under the hood if it makes my performance unpredictable.  That is such a big step backwards that you have to wonder how it can be fixed in the short term.  I fear it can't.  Say what you will about Windows XP the one thing it is on mobile devices is stable.  Rock-solid stable.  Can anyone say that about Vista on mobile PCs?  I have a very bad feeling about the immediate future of mobile computing on the Vista platform.  And that hits me where I live.

Comments

[spinedoc]

I could not agree more with you. On my P1610 Vista ran so badly that I dual boot into XP 100% of the time. I basically handed over cash to MS for nothing, since my Vista OS just sits on a partition doing nothing of benefit.

The other kick in the ass is that we have to wait so long for SP1. A sneak peek at I think it was PCmag revealed that SP1 had pretty decent improvements. But who knows when we will get that.

[GoodThings2Life]

I haven't used Vista in a production environment precisely because of the same problems you describe existing in the RC1 and RC2 releases.

I tried it on my Tablet, and although I liked the Tablet PC bits and Mahjong Titans, that wasn't a significant motivation to use Vista considering how much I hated everything else about it.

I hate the Network Center (actually I just hate Vista networking in general). I hate the Mobility Center. I hate the performance.

I run the Zune Desktop Theme for XP so I already have the slick looking "black" interface sans transparency (which who really cares about that?), so what motivation do I have for wanting Aero?

There are no worthwhile applications that require Vista yet, so that's not a motivator either.

Frankly, I installed the so-called Performance and Compatibility Packs on some test machines we use at work, and I haven't seen much of an improvement there either.

The bottom line is that Vista is just an all around resource hog, and unless SP1 works a miracle the way SP2 did for XP, I don't see the outlook changing on Vista.

But, I do see a trend in Microsoft's OS releases:

3.0 was horrible, but 3.1 and 3.11 were great.
95 was pretty decent, but 95B was great.
98 was horrible, but 98SE was great.
ME was horrible, but 2000 (regardless of SP) was great.
XP was pretty decent but insecure, XPSP2 is great.
Vista is horrible, what will we see with SP1?

[Ctitanic]

Guys, I don't know what you are talking about. Yesterday I was working in my Q1 and I was thinking for myself, I'm so happy with Vista responds time in my Q1 that I'm afraid to move on to any of the new coming UMPCs.

I have been optimizing it, but not so deep as others. I do not have any more those HDD bashing. The only thing that I would improve would be the time to come back from Hibernation but I have to say also that I have a lot of programs working in my taskbar and around 70 process running all time.

And that's in a Q1 Celeron running at 900 MHz. I tested Vista in a eo v7110 (VIA). It was slow and once the beta expired and have not comeback to Vista, I stayed in XP because I considered Vista too much for that processor. But... I had only 1 GB in that machine while in my Q1 I have 2 GB. And I mention this RAM difference because believe me, Vista does not run well in 1 GB of RAM. The performance is increased a lot just by adding that extra gibabyte.

In conclusion, I think that Vista is perfect for UMPCs but... it has to be optimized. I think that Microsoft should create some kind of optimization profiles where people can select what is better for them. And I say this because I'm that James, Kevin and other people reading our blogs can follow our optimization instructions but that's probably 10% or less of all consumers.

[James Kendrick]

Ctitanic, you more than all others are proving my point. You spent months "optimizing" Vista to get it to provide acceptable performance. If I remember correctly you turned off various OS services, hacked the registry, and as you state added 2 GB of memory to a mobile device that doesn't even ship with that much memory. That's exactly what I'm talking about here and you are spot on that the average consumer can't do this stuff. So they buy a machine with lousy performance and wonder why the platform doesn't work well for them. Your device is now configured better than most if not all of the mobile PCs shipping today. Vista will not work well out of the box on these devices. That is my whole point.

[Wiley Johnson]

James, how about a comment on the differences between XP Tablet bits and Vista Tablet bits.
My next machine will be a tablet; currently undefined but my short list is the HP2710, Lenovo X61 and the Fujitsu P1610.
Anyway, I intended to run Vista on the new machine because of Tablet bits comments but now, I almost think I should go stay with XP.
Unless, of course, Apple comes out with a 12 or 13 inch tablet if I can get a Notes program for OSX
..wiley

[GarrettD78]

Not only that but then throw in other promises that actually cause more problems they solve, thank you Readyboost. We actually just got a new Lenovo X61T with Vista installed on it. Problem was that only has 1 GB RAM, it had always intended to have XP on it. Now I am waiting for more memory to come in while the user of the device constantly chews me out for the poor performance.

[Peter Schreiner]

YES! I have an X60 Tablet with Vista (Core Duo, 1GB RAM) and it feels like I experienced every single problem that you describe here - ever tried to get something done on the last 10 mins of battery, but the system would not stop thrashing until the power ran out? Just thinking about it makes me reach for my pills...
I would install XP at once if it weren't for the tablet tools. Even my first tablet (a 386 Thinkpad with Win3.11) wasn't such a performance nightmare.

Peter

[Michael Venini]

James,

Your forgetting that when XP was released, people spent tons of time trying to optimizing it because it had it's problems. Heck, when my parents bought a new notebook last year, I had to spend time turning certain things off to optimized XP.

Up to this point I'm enjoying Vista. I spend about 20 minutes turning certain things off, but once I done that, I have Vista running just as well as it did on XP. And the notebook is a Acer Celron M 1.5, with 512MB!!!! Yes it's Vista Basic, but Vista runs with no problems. I have no problems connecting to the network. I have no problems surfing the net.

I believe Vista will be there one day. But I think Microsoft should of created another version of Vista. Vista for Mobile(or Smaller) machines. Ultimate, Business, Premium, MOBILE, and Basic.

[Frustrated Consumer]

Frankly, I thought your team was exaggerating the problems with Vista and docking. How could it possibly be that bad?

And then I tried using my new dock with my new Fuji notebook last night. Holy cow! You weren't exaggerating at all!

Fortunately Fujitsu put an XP install disk with my new notebook. I think I'm going to use it this weekend...

[Michael Venini]

James,

Your forgetting that when XP was released, people spent tons of time trying to optimizing it because it had it's problems. Heck, when my parents bought a new notebook last year, I had to spend time turning certain things off to optimized XP.

Up to this point I'm enjoying Vista. I spend about 20 minutes turning certain things off, but once I done that, I have Vista running just as well as it did on XP. And the notebook is a Acer Celron M 1.5, with 512MB!!!! Yes it's Vista Basic, but Vista runs with no problems. I have no problems connecting to the network. I have no problems surfing the net.

I believe Vista will be there one day. But I think Microsoft should of created another version of Vista. Vista for Mobile(or Smaller) machines. Ultimate, Business, Premium, MOBILE, and Basic.

[Ctitanic]

One thing, I had HDD trashing when I had Superfetch running. I deactivated using the registry tweak that we have been talking about here and in my blog and that HDD trashing virtually disappear. I have read a lot in other sites that this is a big mistake and they said that the problem with Superfetch is that it needs 2 GB or more to work properly in any device. But.. I have to confess that I'm so happy without superfetch that I have not undone the hack to check if now with 2 GB it works better.

[devwild]

Thanks James for laying this out. It really is true in all practical terms, and is key to why umpcs that are, and need to be for many people, windows based, will continue to fail in the next couple years.

The hardware market has changed significantly and Microsoft has not been able to keep up. There is a desperate need for a modular and scalable version of windows that is based on a simple, secure, functional kernel, with a toolset to build up from the most basic UI and API set needed to run most Windows applications, to the most flashy version for high-end workstations. That way windows can be custom tailored for the nature of the device, and the 4-5+ gigs of un-needed bloat in vista can be left by the wayside on a UMPC.

Vista has still continued to be plagued by the shoddy distributed programing methodologies and long term bloat that has been the root cause for many problems in past versions of windows... which is unfortunate because it was supposed to be a start-over, and an improvement over XP, but it has turned out to be worse.

Linux has long proved that scalable OS design can be successful on modern devices, and now Apple has proved the same with OSX by putting light-weight implementations of Darwin into the AppleTV and iPhone. It's time Microsoft took some real effort with that massive programming team, and did the same.

[Tax Man]

I bought Vista Home Premium when it first came out to install on my Q1. I was so unhappy with the performance with 1GB RAM that I rolled back to XP Tablet Edition, which I've been happily using ever since. On all my Macs, I run Windows XP in Parallels and not Vista. Thanks to Vista's automatic activation BS for the 2 weeks I had it on my Q1, I can't even use my stupid Vista license on another computer. I spend as much time as possible in the Mac OSX environment. I'm an Apple Fanboy, but I'm not a Windows hater. I've been using PC's since the very first IBM PC and I've used every version of Windows, IBM's OS/2, and every Mac OS since System 7. I'm not one of these Apple lovers that wants to see Microsoft fail. To the contrary, I want to see Microsoft WORK! I saw the glowing reviews on the HTC Advantage, but I've used so many Windows Mobile devices that I know that the mobile version of Office just doesn't cut it for me. I need to bring my whole computing environment like I can on the Q1, not just bits. Anyway, I appreciate your addressing the elephant in the room because when all the a-listers start talking, stuff starts happening!

[Ctitanic]

James I'm agree with your point. But... I do not think Vista is the problem. I think that Microsoft and OEM are the problem. They have to sell the units with the OS optimized. In the case of Microsoft they should create optimization profiles and put that into a program easy to understand by users.

[Brian]

Was on the OS cusp prior to the last laptop warmer (wait, make that burner) going toes up.
Always looking for devices and used every OS and profile from the dark ages of organizers to Psion, MS CE - better?, maybe better but... Had installed Linux on older handhelds then the 1st gen iPaq (Daylight screen and turn the back light off, expansion sleeve, bulky but - WooHoo, profile display software, a keyboard and someone gets it!) Rode that sucker into the dust but in the end - eh -, used a Sharp with a Micro Drive - mnt,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, - eh - , smart phones, the movie, "My two left thumbs" eh -, then UMPC's start to seriously show up. Several tablets along the way (even the daughters kick'n Toshiba she needs for Engineering school) then along comes Vista.
The MS experience is finally done for me.
Decided the MS Vampire had to die so committed to changing up the usage profile altogether.
Was all set for a Nokia N95 and/or E90 combined with a Foleo hacked with a Wacom digitizer.
Cheap (well okay, the Nokia's but hey, no extra camera or GPS so..) light alternatives that don't set my pocket (or pants) on fire.
Now the delay in the Foleo. If the N95 gets a bigger screen or the E90 goes video out, it's straight to larger monitors with keyboards and forget the Smartphone assistant.
Will dual boot XP SP2 at best when needed or borrow another box (da Wifes) but No Mas Microsoft.

[Sumocat]

Op-eds like this make me glad I haven't gotten off the wait-and-see bus for Vista. While it is loaded with functionality I'd like to use, like the improved Tablet PC bits and better search function, the sheer number of quirks that users are encountering is absolutely repellant.

That said, I wouldn't discount its potential for mobile devices just yet. I agree with CTitanic that the main problem with Vista is that OEMs aren't optimizing their devices for it and Microsoft isn't helping. If Microsoft and the hardware makers make the effort to tailor Vista to fit each device, then the real mobile benefits of Vista could start to shine. That is, however, a big "if", but perhaps the threat of Apple, with their seamless integration of software and hardware, will force MS to take action.

[Kent Pribbernow]

Vista has pushed me to the breaking point. Since installing this OS on my production workstation/gaming rig in January I have endured nothing but frustration. Driver support, even months after Vista's release continues to be problematic.

It is performance or lack thereof that has me running for higher ground. My system takes MINUTES to fully load the OS upon bootup, and once it loads the OS performs like molasses being poured through a straw. Applications run noticeably slower in comparison to XP. Gaming support and performance is abysmal.

The UI is ugly - Aero glass has far too much bling, it's gaudy and distracting. Yesterday I did something humiliating but necessary - I dropped back to Windows "Classic" theme. It's the only way to gain acceptable application and UI performance under Vista. So now, here I am staring at a GUI I haven't seen or used since Windows 2000 Professional, eight years ago. And that I think is the last straw for me.

Over the weekend, if free time avails, I plan on formatting my hard drive and going back to XP Pro. This time for good.

I work with both Mac and PC, and Vista has given me that final bit of encouragement to go completely Mac. Virtualization has all but made operating system choice irrelevant. Thanks to Microsoft's disastrous product release...my personal computing roadmap will take the nearest exit, away from Windows.

[Steve]

I can see vista running well for users who only need internet and ms office on umpc's. If you use it for anything more intensive than that, forget it!. If you look at the Ultra mobile space, UMPC's have not increased in speed over the old U50 - U70 Vaio's. These machines ran XP really well, so the next generation of vista is not likely to perform. If you have a nice grunty home desktop pc ... go for it, go for vista, otherwise stick to xp... I've owned almost every umpc out there... vista is pathetic.

[James Kendrick]

When I say Vista I am referring to the entire Vista ecosystem which includes the OS, OEMs and us consumers. Yes, we consumers must share part of the blame too. The OEMs and MS are playing on the mobile playing field we consumers built and that causes them to release mobile devices with processors that are underpowered and systems lacking sufficient hardware resources to run Vista properly. We consumers grouse now about UMPCs costing over $1,000 so OEMs are not about to put proper processors, 2 GB of memory and other hardware requirements to run Vista the way it should run. Intel shares in the OEM blame by trying to make processors much cheaper for the reasons above, and those processors don't have the oomph to handle the needs of Vista. Not in the long haul.

I am not saying that this can't be fixed, but I am adamant in my claim that it can't be fixed in the short term. Too many pieces of the puzzle must fall into place for this to happen, and that won't be quick.

[Lee]

I agree completely. I returned a brand new X61T and ate the restocking fee, because after playing with it for a couple of weeks, I was convinced that Vista was simply *still* not ready for prime time - especially on mobile devices. I had more BSOD on my X61T in 3 weeks, then I had in 5 years COMBINED on my TC1100 and my Vaio T250. I believe that I had narrowed the problem down to memory conflicts related to ReadyBoost, but I just wasn't prepared to spend I don't know how many more weeks tweaking, optimizing and cursing at the X61T just to get Vista to run smoothly.

In fact, the only thing that is preventing me from finally upgrading my Vaio T series (which still performs just fine) to the smoking hot TZ series, is my absolute dread of dealing with Vista on the laptop. I want the computer to work out of the box and other then normal personal configuration preferences, I don't want to be the one to have to figure out why Vista is not working right and what do I have to do to fix it.

In many ways it is similar to why I like my iPhone more then my tricked out Treo WX - because I spend almost no time tweaking my iPhone to make it run smoothly, or watching it hang up on something or having to reboot it. Yes, conceptually the Treo is supposed to allow me to do more then the iPhone - but I actually ACCOMPLISH more with the iPhone then the Treo - which I have started to use less and less - and which I never thought would happen.

I couldn't agree with you more James - I don't think Vista is ready for prime time on mobile devices.

[scoobie]

There goes the MVP...

[Mickey Segal]

James: you are right in identifying the problems, but most of these problems can be solved rather quickly if Microsoft and users took a few crucial steps.

Microsoft needs to deal with the problem that you labeled as "brain farts". Using Process Explorer (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Utilities/ProcessExplorer.mspx) it seems that most such episodes are instances of svchost.exe running some service that would best be deferred while mobile. Having such services not run while on battery power would be an important step to making mobile computing work better, and this should not be very hard for Microsoft to arrange.

Another thing that Microsoft needs to do is fix the docking problem. Although part of this may be due to third party graphics drivers, Microsoft needs to use its clout to get that problem fixed.

Users can also do some simple steps such as using "Sleep", after which Vista returns quite quickly, and avoiding resource hogs such as Norton AntiVirus.

All these steps can be taken very quickly. However, it will take longer for this to boost computer sales, and prices will fall fastest as sales go up, so the mobile sector is not going to show its true promise very quickly. But with proper steps from Microsoft the situation can be improved dramatically.

[James Kendrick]

Mickey, I wish it were that simple. I experience heavy disk activity resuming from Sleep randomly on five different Tablets. It's like Russian roulette pulling the device out of my bag in a meeting and hitting the power button to resume. There is a disconnect with what Vista is trying to do and when it does it on mobile devices.

[Scott]

I run Vista Home Premium on a new, moderately equipped Gateway retail laptop. It has 1 GB of RAM (which I hope to uppgrade to 2 GB soon) and an AMD Turion 64 2.2 Ghz CPU -- a single core CPU. It runs pretty well. Everything is fairly zippy until I start multi-tasking -- then, it starts to slow down a bit (but, my older 1.7 Ghz desktop did too with XP). I'm hoping more RAM will help.

I've had no disk thrashing -- at least, not that I'm aware of.

When I knew I would be getting this laptop, I had seriously considered re-formatting and installing WinXP. Unfortunately, I can't go to XP because there are no drivers for the thing. It was "designed" for Vista.

Btw, I did end up blowing away the OEM installation and re-installing Vista to get rid of all the crapware -- which also meant I got to tweak it my way, not Gateway's. Fortunately, Gateway actually gives you a full Vista DVD so you can do a fresh install (not just a restore from the "Restore" partition, which, incidentally, I also blew away).

My biggest problem is some error (probably some errant driver) that inconsistently -- but frequently -- causes a BSOD on shutdown. Beyond the fact that there is a condition serious enough to cause a BSOD, this normally wouldn't be THAT big of a problem since it only seems to occur when I shut down. The problem is, however, after the BSOD, the PC immediately re-starts -- so I have to wait around until it gives me the chance to tell it to shutdown, again.

Of course, then there's the dreaded "Calculating Remaning Time" bug...THAT drives me nuts. So much so that I installed xplorer2 Lite just so I won't have to use Vista's goofy Explorer.

[Chuck]

Over on GottaBeMobile there is some sugestion that the real problem lies with Intel. http://www.gottabemobile.com/CommentView,guid,6fe124d2-c918-4a03-97b7-aacfa2d20b24.aspx#commentstart
The Intel graphics chip drivers don't seem to be cutting it. This, coupled with the lackluster A1** processors, makes me wonder if they are setting us up for MID.
AMD and VIA had better get Vista Capable UMPC graphics functionality soon.