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Known Issues, October 23, 2008

XP beats Vista? Could be the OS or poor drivers

Dennis O'Reilly By Dennis O'Reilly

For at least one organization, the choice is clear: you'll get more work done in less time when you use Windows XP instead of Vista.

On the other hand, some problems you encounter while using Vista are not caused by the OS but by a third-party driver.

A reader named Gerry, who asked us not to use his last name or company name, describes the process his firm used to determine whether to stick with Windows XP or upgrade to Vista:

  • "When we tested Vista, we configured PCs (both 32- and 64-bit) as we normally would for our users, who are mostly engineers. Our first finding was simple: we did not find a single enhancement that made users more productive.

    "However, our biggest surprise was performance. Universally, we found that our engineering applications required 65% more time to complete tasks [on Vista] compared to XP on the same hardware. We estimated that the average user would waste at least an extra 60 minutes each day simply waiting for things to happen.

    "All of this testing was done on Vista-certified hardware that was no more than six months old. We worked directly with Microsoft and the hardware and software vendors to address these issues. Although they helped, it was a losing battle.

    "In our earliest tests, the applications required 500% more time to complete. After patching and updating drivers, we were able to get that down to 65%. For our 200 engineers at a $50/hour burden rate, that equates to a loss of $20,000,000 (or more) per year.

    "Now add the cost of hardware upgrades to support Vista. Then deal with the driver and application compatibility issues.

    "Therefore, we found no business case for Vista."
In Vista's defense, Microsoft's main pledge was to make Vista more secure than XP, and in that regard the company succeeded. However, safer and faster is the winning combination — something that many people find to be missing from Vista.

That said, it's not fair to point the finger at Microsoft whenever Windows fails to work as advertised. The problem might not be the Redmond company's fault, as Bill Hobson found when he diagnosed a glitch with his Vista 64 PC:
  • "I have a Dell Precision Workstation running Vista x64 Business with a Broadcom integrated NIC. I noticed that Outlook Web Access was taking 15-20 seconds to bring up the login screen. I tested with both IE 7 and Firefox 3 and got the same results.

    "So I went to Dell's site and got the latest NIC drivers from there. Still poor performance. Then I went directly to Broadcom's site and downloaded version 10.1, upgraded, and still had the same poor performance.

    "I disabled that NIC, installed an Intel Pro 100, and now the page loads in less than 1 second.

    "I have a Dell tablet with Vista Ultimate and a Broadcom NIC, and it suffered from the same poor performance, but fortunately there is a better [32-bit] driver available that fixes this speed issue.

    "I am hoping that Broadcom gets their act together and puts out a decent-performing x64 driver soon. Bottom line: it may not be Vista that is the problem!"
As much as we'd like to think that hardware and software vendors work together like a well-oiled machine, the responsibility for keeping our PC's components on speaking terms is sometimes difficult to pin down.

Clickjacking scores its first victims

In last week's Top Story, Windows Secrets associate editor Stuart Johnston described a technique being used by bad guys to infect your PCs and steal your personal information. Now we hear from a reader named Graham, who has first-hand experience that clickjacking attacks are real and likely to become more common.
  • "Yep, clickjacking is in the wild. I build, fix, and de-badware computers for family, friends, and businesses. I had a friend complain that his eBay page kept popping up with auctions when he hadn't accessed eBay. So, dutifully, I went to see what was going on and found that he had been trawling through some [game] crack sites.

    "When he clicked some links, he would also pop his eBay page up (he had his eBay cookie set). Bingo! The crack-page vendors had scored his login details. I quickly apprised him of the risks of visiting said pages and, of course, quickly reset his eBay password and scanned, cleaned, and disinfected his computer.

    "Hopefully, I have left him a much wiser if not a safer surfer. So the hack is out there and, I am sure, soon to spread to more legitimate sites as hackers break into badly protected Web pages. And I am sure more nastiness will soon present itself rather than this more benign attack (and I am not lessening the seriousness of this type of attack, just that this was easily fixed)."
To repeat the precautions that Stuart outlined in his article: (1) use the Firefox browser with Giorgio Maone's NoScript script-blocking add-on installed (donation requested) and allow only trusted sites to run scripts, (2) update to the latest version of Adobe's Flash Player, and (3) stay away from questionable sites.
Readers Gerry, Bill, and Graham will each receive a gift certificate for a book, CD, or DVD of their choice for sending tips we printed. Send us your tips via the Windows Secrets contact page.

 The Known Issues column brings you readers' comments on our recent articles. Dennis O'Reilly is technical editor of WindowsSecrets.com.

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