# How big a resource hog is MS Windows Vista? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 25, 2008, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-a-resource-hog-is-ms-windows-vista/461239 "2008-08-25T20:44:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2008, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-a-resource-hog-is-ms-windows-vista/461239/1 "2008-08-25T20:44:30Z")
I’m still poking along on XP SP3 while the notebooks I’ve gotten for the kids have Vista. They live with Vista although they find the constant permissions pop ups annoying. In using their notebooks with 3 gig of RAM etc I can’t say I’ve noticed any big “look and feel” speed increase over my XP noteook with 1.5 gigs. I see that most new Vista notebooks are shipping with 3-4 gigs of RAM. Is Vista really that much of an insane resource hog that it needs 3-4 gigs to operate properly, or is it just being bundled that way because RAM memory is relatively cheap? ---
**Author:** ![Kinthalis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kinthalis/32/16084_2.png) [@Kinthalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kinthalis)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2008, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-a-resource-hog-is-ms-windows-vista/461239/2 "2008-08-25T21:04:16Z")
It’s because RAM is relatively cheap and because today we are demanding more of both our OS and our PC in terms of multi-tasking. Vista runs fine on 1 gig, but if you expect to surf the web with 10 browser windows open while listening to your mp3’s and watching the latest video podcast from your fave show and downloading the latest episode of monk on bit-torrent, you’re going to need at least 2. Most memory related issues are not the fault of the OS, but rather 3rd party programs which are either bloated and inefficient in their memory use, load in the background without your knowledge, or simply require a lot of RAM do to it’s intended use. I know people who actually try to open the 50 pictures they took on their vacation with their 10 megapixel camera in photoshop and when it comes screechign to a halt they blame the OS. Even more so if it happens to be vista, because gods know that Vista is supposed to magically icnrease your system’s RAM whenever you need it to :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Stan\_Doubt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@Stan\_Doubt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Doubt)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2008, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-a-resource-hog-is-ms-windows-vista/461239/3 "2008-08-25T23:47:27Z")
Vista is an insane resource hog in some respects due to the amount of extra copy protection built into the OS itself. When you are trying to use your own computer to do useful work, Vista is checking thirty times a second to make sure you are not doing anything naughty. Whether this makes a difference in the user experience depends on what hardware you have and what you are doing with it. If you enable a lot of the eye candy, then yeah, that is another area where it is a resource hog. But since you can turn it on and off and some people like that kind of thing, you can’t really call it a basic fault of the OS. ---
**Author:** ![Kinthalis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kinthalis/32/16084_2.png) [@Kinthalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kinthalis)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2008, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-a-resource-hog-is-ms-windows-vista/461239/4 "2008-08-26T00:04:02Z")
[QUOTE=Stan Doubt] When you are trying to use your own computer to do useful work, Vista is checking thirty times a second to make sure you are not doing anything naughty. [/QUOTE] This is GQ. Can I get a cite on this please? As far as I’m aware the only copy protection scheme handled by vista is HDCP. This is NOT checking that your excel spreadsheet is not a list of pirated mp3’s. And that it’s a resource hog due to this supposed copy protection sounds like nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![threemae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@threemae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/threemae)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2008, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-a-resource-hog-is-ms-windows-vista/461239/5 "2008-08-26T00:08:33Z")
[QUOTE=Stan Doubt] Vista is an insane resource hog in some respects due to the amount of extra copy protection built into the OS itself. When you are trying to use your own computer to do useful work, Vista is checking thirty times a second to make sure you are not doing anything naughty. Whether this makes a difference in the user experience depends on what hardware you have and what you are doing with it. [/QUOTE] I’ve never found this to be true and I would also be very interested if you could provide a citation for Vista’s “copy protection built into the OS itself,” going beyond what is absolutely necessary to present a Protected Video Path (PVP) for HD video content. That is, unless you want to watch Blu-Ray DVD’s, I don’t believe that Vista presents any DRM restrictions beyond those in XP or any other OS (the DRM restrictions built into add-on software and files themselves). In other words, Vista does nothing to stop you from burning or reproducing MP3’s, downloading Torrents of any type of media file, nor from pirating software (except for Vista’s own validation schemes for itself), etc. > **[Protected Media Path](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_Video_Path)** > > The Protected Media Path is a set of technologies creating a "Protected Environment," first included in Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system, that is used to enforce digital rights management (DRM) protections on content. > Its subsets are Protected Video Path (PVP) and Protected User Mode Audio (PUMA). Any application that uses Protected Media Path in Windows uses Media Foundation. > The protected environment in which DRM content is played contains the media components that play DRM content, ... > **[Criticism of Windows Vista](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Windows_Vista)** > > Windows Vista, an operating system released by Microsoft for consumers on January 30, 2007, has been widely criticized by reviewers and users. Due to issues with new security features, performance, driver support and product activation, it has been the subject of a number of negative assessments by various groups. > For security reasons, 64-bit versions of Windows Vista allow only signed drivers to be installed in kernel mode. Because code executing in kernel mode enjoys wide privileges on the s... Not to say that Blu-Ray DVD’s have not been hacked, but I don’t believe that there are any consumer Blu-Ray devices (including Apple computers and OS’es) that do not have this whole-path copy protection scheme built in. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2008, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-a-resource-hog-is-ms-windows-vista/461239/6 "2008-08-26T01:43:07Z")
[QUOTE=Kinthalis] This is GQ. Can I get a cite on this please? As far as I’m aware the only copy protection scheme handled by vista is HDCP. This is NOT checking that your excel spreadsheet is not a list of pirated mp3’s. And that it’s a resource hog due to this supposed copy protection sounds like nonsense. [/QUOTE] Peter Guttman “In order to prevent active attacks, device drivers are required to poll the underlying hardware every 30ms for digital outputs and every 150 ms for analog ones to ensure that everything appears kosher” > **[A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection](https://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html)** ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2008, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-a-resource-hog-is-ms-windows-vista/461239/7 "2008-08-26T03:51:14Z")
[QUOTE=astro] I’m still poking along on XP SP3 while the notebooks I’ve gotten for the kids have Vista. They live with Vista although they find the constant permissions pop ups annoying. [/QUOTE] I hated those and it took me about five minutes to disable them. It’s in the Security part, something like “User Accounts Controls” (I don’t have my Vista machine here). Once you’ve disabled that, they’ll get a whiny balloon saying “OhmyGAWD you’ve got UAC disabled put it on, put it on, put it on, waaaaaaaaaah!” every time they log in, but it’s a lot less painful. Disabling Aero (which is part of the eye candy and not anything I’m missing) lowers the hogginess. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2008, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-a-resource-hog-is-ms-windows-vista/461239/8 "2008-08-26T04:06:05Z")
For a given piece of hardware, XP will outperform Vista: > [@PC World](#): > > …so we used our WorldBench 6 benchmark tests to gauge how well XP, Vista, and Vista SP1 performed a standard set of tasks. We found that Windows XP still outperforms Vista–with SP1 or without–by a wide margin. SP1 finished second in many cases and third in others. [Cite](http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/143608/test_results_does_sp1_fix_vista.html). A [Vista apologist](http://www.tweakguides.com/VA_7.html) responds that, “virtually none of the features in this section is so exciting that you could classify them as indispensable or amazing. I admit, there is no Wow. Certainly no XP user will look at this sample of features and fall into utter despair. However in aggregate I believe they do make a compelling case that there’s far more to Vista than just meets the eye, particularly for people who want greater security, more choice, and a smoother and more pleasant computing experience [_cough, choke_ -ed].” Those bells and whistles include pretty graphical enhancements, a file manager that copies files slower but has some nice extra features, improved security, instant search (which also tends to keep your hard drive cranking away, at least in comparison to the Copernic search utility), troubleshooting and diagnostics, audio improvements and improved multitasking. On the whole, I consider Vista to be an annoying waste of time, but others obviously will differ. ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2008, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-a-resource-hog-is-ms-windows-vista/461239/9 "2008-08-26T05:51:42Z")
[QUOTE=astro] I’m still poking along on XP SP3 while the notebooks I’ve gotten for the kids have Vista. They live with Vista although they find the constant permissions pop ups annoying. [/QUOTE] If you search for: disable uac vista you will find out how to remove that annoyance.