Not sure this is true but it would be logical to have VSC available to other third party applications (such as Genie Backup or Acronis TrueImage) but only natively available in Ultimate via the Vista backup utility (effectively part of the extra cost of Ultimate is that you are buying a built in disk imaging solution).

It would be a bit of a step back if it was disbaled in Vista since it was present in XP !!

Assuming Vista uses VSC in the same way as XP it shouldn't cause excessive disk activity (in fact it shouldn't cause any at all because until you use it there should be no file monitoring going on). AIUI it is just a method of taking a snapshot of files that are in use at a particular time so that if you backup you get a consistent image or archive. Without VSC you would not be able to consistently backup up files that are in use because files may change during the backup process.

It would be a bit of a step back if it was disbaled in Vista since it was present in XP !!

Assuming Vista uses VSC in the same way as XP it shouldn't cause excessive disk activity (in fact it shouldn't cause any at all because until you use it there should be no file monitoring going on).

The article read otherwise, in that Vista needs to scan files for changes:

With the virtual copy of your HD shadow copies has created, previous versions will simply check each and every file if it has changed since it was last backed up. If so, a backup copy is saved. This will also be true for directories but only changes will be saved.

If that is done on a schedule, it is still going to cause some overhead, especially when those backed up versions cannot be accessed unless you buy a new OS or specific 3rd-party app.

I forget now, but thought volume shadow copy service was set to manual in XP by default so it is not running until it is activated in some way.

Quote from: Carol Haynes on December 03, 2007, 02:41 PM

It would be a bit of a step back if it was disbaled in Vista since it was present in XP !!

Assuming Vista uses VSC in the same way as XP it shouldn't cause excessive disk activity (in fact it shouldn't cause any at all because until you use it there should be no file monitoring going on).

The article read otherwise, in that Vista needs to scan files for changes:

Quote

With the virtual copy of your HD shadow copies has created, previous versions will simply check each and every file if it has changed since it was last backed up. If so, a backup copy is saved. This will also be true for directories but only changes will be saved.

If that is done on a schedule, it is still going to cause some overhead, especially when those backed up versions cannot be accessed unless you buy a new OS or specific 3rd-party app.

I forget now, but thought volume shadow copy service was set to manual in XP by default so it is not running until it is activated in some way.

Backup has to scan files for change if you are doing an incremental or differential backup - how else is it going to do it? The only reason Backup should cause disk chattering when you are not actually performing a backup is if Vista Backup tries to continually keep tabs on which files have changed since last backup - but that is not the way MS has done it in the past (they simply marked files with an attribute to say it needed backing up) and I'd be surprised if that has been introduced with Vista as it is a pretty stupid way of doing it!

VSC doesn't have anything to do with that (or at least it didn't in XP) as it is purely to enable backing up files that are in use. AIUI the way it works in XP is that at the time a backup is requested it redirects all disc writes during the backup process to  alternate versions of files that are in use which are maintained by VSC and when the backup completes up to date versions of those files are written back to disk so that you don't lose data. That way VSC stops the data you are backing up from being altered whilst the backup is running but still allows you to carry on working on your system while the backup is still incomplete. The backup will consist of files in the state they were at when VSC was initiated (ie. the start of the backup process) all changes to files on your disc during the backup are not backed up until next time you do a backup. (Sorry that got a bit convoluted but I think it makes sense - just).

Consequently the only time VSC should actually be doing anything is during the backup process - and even then it only maintains copies of files that are in use - disc activity should be minimal unless you choose to pound your system during a backup process.

Now if you schedule a backup the hard disc will chatter away throughout - how else can it do a backup?

Presumably yes - because basic backup allows you to backup the registry and it must produce a consistent result. Not sure if it uses VSC to achieve that but it would be logical. I presume basic backup also deals with files that are in use at the time of the backup - or does it warn you that some files cannot be backed up?

Vista was able to make 100% use of all cores where XP only managed to use 70-80% with the same program. In Vista things got done quite a bit faster. Startup of programs when other things are running is also way faster on Vista.

Are you sure that it's just not Vista itself taking those last 20-30% CPU time? joking aside, perhaps the Vista scheduler tries to keep thread on the same core, instead of trying to balance load equally across cores... I've seen speedups on XP when I manually lock thread affinity (so threads stay on one core), probably has to do with better core cache memory utilization...

As for faster program startups, the more aggressive prefetching of Vista is certainly something I wouldn't mind having.

But in whole, I'll be sticking with XP until the child diseases of Vista have been rooted out, and I'm sure I can cut off all the fat and useless crap.

Holy smokes...

I just found out there is support for Unix services in Vista Enterprise.
You just have to enable it...

---

from GoITExpert

from the website I found this at...

There is also addon utilities and an SDK that you can download from Microsoft to add greater flexibility and performance and will include both the K Shell and the C Shell.

from the Microsoft link:

Overview
Utilities and SDK for UNIX-Based Applications is an add-on to the Subsystem for UNIX-Based Applications (referred to as SUA, hence forth) component that shipped in Microsoft Windows Vista / Windows Server2008 RC1.
This consists of the following components:

- Base Utilities
- SVR-5 Utilities
- Base SDK
- GNU SDK
- GNU Utilities
- UNIX Perl
- Visual Studio Debugger Add-in

This release enables 64-bit application development for SUA. development and porting of custom UNIX applications using the Windows OCI (Oracle Call Interface) and Windows ODBC libraries (collectively referred to as ‘Mixed Mode’ in the rest of the document).

Download it from  here

Well, by the mention of "GNU Utilities" I would assume all the base apps are already available, and with a Visual Studio add-on, I imagine they are trying VERY HARD to make it that simple.
I'll Google around and see if there isn't more to be learned...

It was available even on win2k, just had to download a biggish file and install.

Indeed.
I found some more info here, and now I recall what all the fuss is about.
This is pretty much about the Interix interoperability thingummy that Microsoft came up with to lure old Unix hands into their clutches encourage Microsoft/Intel server adoption in environments traditionally Unix-centric, whilst attempting to stem the impending flood of Linux migrations.
Don't know much beyond that.

At the risk of unintentionally offending someone (apologies as needed), perhaps a pragmatic approach?...

If you compare pricing on MACs vs. PCs with near identical hardware, for many (myself included) any discussion ends right there. Not being cheap as much as practical: if money was no object, I'd just pay somebody else to do it, making any claims of "ease of use" or efficiency etc irrelevant.

The same sort of approach acts as a bit of a reality check regarding Vista... My eldest grew up with PCs, and sees them purely as tools. I set up Vista on his new laptop, and after a few weeks he can't find or tell the difference compared to his desktop running XP Pro. While I certainly know the differences, along with all the pros and cons, to him and I suspect millions of daily users like him (who greatly outnumber enthusiasts) the whole discussion is totally irrelevant.
-----------------

RE: Shadow Copies... Not a lot of info out there, it is possible to manipulate the shadow files via scripting but otherwise not a lot of uses other than system restore. Unlike XP, Vista's System Restore actually does restore the hdd, and *most* of the registry -- for maximum safety use Erunt before creating the restore point. Shadow copy files are in a different format than anything else, so as soon as a non-vista OS looks at the drive, they're gone, as with multi-boot PCs.